THE  MAKING 

OF 

HERBERT  HOOVER 


THE  MAKING 

OF 

HERBERT  HOOVER 


BY 

ROSE  WILDER  LANE 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1920 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Copyright,  1<>70,  by 
SUNSET  MAGAZINE,  INC. 


PEEFACE 

This  is  a  story  stranger  than  fiction  and  as  real 
as  America.  In  Herbert  Hoover's  own  experi 
ence,  from  his  strange  boyhood  to  his  myth-like 
success,  he  has  lived  through  all  the  phases  of  de 
velopment  that  have  created  America  itself.  The 
forces  that  made  the  country  made  the  man  and 
behind  the  growth  of  his  soul  there  is  shown  the 
growth  of  the  nation. 

From  the  prologue,  with  its  generations  of 
pioneers  facing  ever  west,  to  the  epilogue,  with 
its  record  of  continuing  service,  at  home  and 
abroad,  this  story  proves  that,  in  the  most  subtle 
sense,  Herbert  Hoover  represents  America. 

The  method  used  in  handling  this  biographical 
material  is  so  unusual  that  a  word  of  explanation 
is  necessary.  The  facts  on  which  the  story  is 
based  I  do  not  believe  to  be  open  to  dispute. 
Every  detail  of  them  has  been  collected  with  meti- 
culous  care  from  sources  of  u&gue sjionable^au-  ' 
thority.  The  interpretation  of  them  is  my  own.  . 
I  have  endeavored  to  present  as  a  living  human 
being  the  man  whose  life  has  been  made  by  these 
facts,  to  show  the  influences  of  heredity  and  en- 


vi  PEEFACE 

vironment  that  went  toward  the  making  of  his 
character  as  I  believe  it  to  be.  For  the  purely 
interpretative  portions  of  the  work,  therefore,  I 
claim  no  authority  save  my  own  opinion  and  that 
of  many  collaborators  intimately  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Hoover  since  his  infancy. 

The  greater  share  of  any  praise  this  book  may 
earn  belongs  to  Charles  Kellogg  Field,  editor  of 
Sunset  magazine  and  good  friend  of  all  California 
writers.  It  was  he  who  inspired  the  work,  col 
lected  a  large  part  of  the  material,  assisted  day 
by  day  in  the  writing,  and  edited  the  whole.  If, 
when  the  curtain  descends  upon  these  scenes  in 
which  we  have  tried  to  show  the  drama  and  the 
meaning  of  one  great  American  life,  there  are 
any  cries  of  "  Author !"  from  the  audience,  I  can 
appear  upon  the  stage  only  long  enough  to  say, 
"Spot-light,  please,  for  Charles  Kellogg  Field, 
classmate  and  friend  of  Herbert  Hoover. " 

K  W.  L. 


THE  MAKING  OF  HERBEKT  HOOVEE 


PROLOGUE 

THE  BLOOD   IN    HIS   VEINS 

IN  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  a 
Eoman  Catholic  King  of  France  persecuted 
with  religious  fervor  the  Protestants  in  his 
realm.  At  that  time  there  lived  in  the  environs 
of  Paris  a  man  named  Huber.  He  was  thrifty, 
sagacious,  and  prosperous  in  a  small  way;  his 
family  was  growing  up  around  him;  his  life  ap 
peared  destined  to  ripen  into  old  age  as  serenely 
as  that  of  the  fruit-tree  in  his  garden.  He  pos 
sessed  all  things  to  make  a  man  contented,  save 
one. 

"The  need  of  a  man's  soul,"  he  said,  "is  to  be 
free."  For  the  sake  of  that  freedom  which  he 
valued  more  than  all  his  possessions  he  tore  up 
the  roots  of  his  life.  He  and  his  family,  hunted 
fugitives,  escaped  into  Holland  with  nothing  ex 
cept  the  contents  of  the  bundle  he  carried  on  his 
back. 

No  more  is  known  of  him.  The  years  buried 
him  with  the  multitudes  of  the  forgotten  dead ;  the 
language  of  the  alien  people  among  whom  he  died 
engulfed  even  his  name.  His  sons  were  called 

3 


4  THE  MAKING  OF 

Hoover.  But  his  spirit  lived  in  them.  It  was 
one  of  the  seeds  from  which,  in  the  unknown  fu 
ture,  a  nation  was  to  grow. 

Four  centuries  marched  over  his  grave,  bury 
ing  beside  him  kingdoms  and  faiths  and  genera 
tions  of  men,  swinging  the  World's  center  of 
gravity  westward  across  an  ocean  to  a  new  conti 
nent,  and  out  of  that  nation  rose  a  man  who  was 
to  make  and  unmake  kingdoms,  to  feed  whole 
peoples,  and  to  sway  the  fortunes  of  a  world  war. 

This  man  sat  at  a  desk  in  a  business  office,  a 
quiet  place  in  the  midst  of  chaos.  A  structure 
reared  by  centuries  was  rocking  on  its  founda 
tions,  twenty-six  nations  were  struggling  in  a 
death-grapple,  Europe  faced  starvation,  America 
was  shaken  as  by  an  earthquake.  The  cry  was 
for  strong  men,  for  men  who  could  rule.  Free 
peoples  gave  up  their  freedom ;  men  and  opinions 
were  conscripted;  old,  dearly  bought  liberties  were 
abandoned  in  the  panic  of  the  world. 

Herbert  Hoover,  descendant  through  four  centu 
ries  from  Huber  the  Frenchman,  was  Food  Dic 
tator  to  one  hundred  million  persons.  The  Allied 
cause  depended  upon  food,  the  food  could  come 
only  from  America,  and  Herbert  Hoover  was  re 
sponsible  for  America's  action.  Greater  power 
than  that  of  an  emperor  was  in  his  hands,  and  men 
expected  him  to  use  it. 

"No,"  he  said.    "Freedom  is  a  force  too  pre- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  5 

cious  to  be  destroyed.  Men  do  not  need  rulers; 
they  need  education.  I  shall  tell  the  Ameri 
can  people  the  facts ;  they  will  act  upon  them.  I 
shall  organize  their  efforts,  but  the  power  that 
will  make  them  successful  must  come  from  a  free 
people. " 

The  authentic  voice  of  America  spoke  those 
words,  heard  through  a  babel  of  hysterical  shouts 
about  Americanism.  It  was  the  voice  of  men  and 
women  who  broke  the  resistance  of  an  untamed 
continent,  who  destroyed  a  wilderness  to  build  a 
republic.  Herbert  Hoover  spoke  for  them  because 
their  spirit  had  made  his.  Behind  him  were  five 
generations  of  men  whose  laborious,  inconspicuous 
lives  had  served  a  great  ideal.  Their  struggle  to 
create  America  had  created  Herbert  Hoover. 

The  need  of  the  human  soul  for  freedom  had 
driven  Huber  from  France.  Nearly  two  hundred 
years  later,  in  1740,  the  hope  of  finding  freedom 
in  a  new  world  brought  his  three  descendants, 
Christian,  Jonas,  and  Andrew  Hoover,  across  the 
perilous  seas.  On  the  frontier  in  Maryland 
Andrew  built  a  log  house  and  established  a  home. 
He  was  a  strong,  hard-fisted  man,  with  a  quiet 
manner  and  a  merry  eye.  He  became  a  good 
woodsman  and  a  clever  hunter.  His  cabin  was 
comfortable,  and  the  small  farm  thrived.  But, 
alone  in  the  woods  with  his  ax  or  his  gun,  he 
thought  deeply,  and  it  came  to  him  that  his  soul 


6  THE  MAKING  OF 

had  not  found  freedom.  There  was  still  the 
church,  ruling  the  small  community  with  the  fierce 
bigotry  into  which  the  American  pioneers  had 
turned  their  hard-won  freedom  from  Catholicism. 
There  were  certain  forms,  such  as  baptism,  that 
must  be  observed,  certain  tithes  that  must  be 
paid,  an  iron  creed  that  must  be  professed.  At 
night  before  the  fire  he  discussed  these  things  with 
his  wife  Margaret. 

"A  free  man  obeys  nothing  but  his  own  con 
science,'7  Andrew  decided  at  last.  And  when  a 
traveler,  staying  overnight,  told  of  the  Friends' 
community  on  Huwarra  Creek,  Andrew  and  Mar 
garet  left  the  place  they  had  built  and  set  out  into 
the  wilderness  of  North  Carolina. 

The  early  groups  of  Friends  in  America  were 
perhaps  the  best  compromise  between  individual 
ism  and  community  needs  that  man  has  ever 
reached.  Men  and  women  were  equal  members  of 
the  Society;  personal  conscience  was  the  only  law 
giver,  and  the  worship  of  God  had  been  freed  of 
all  creed  and  ritual.  In  this  environment  Andrew 
Hoover  and  his  wife  found  peace,  and  in  it  they 
reared  their  thirteen  children. 

In  the  prime  of  his  manhood  their  son  John  be 
came  restless.  Beyond  the  forests,  toward  the 
west,  an  unpeopled  continent  called  to  the  pioneer 
spirit.  Word  came  that  the  central  government 
of  the  United  States  had  thrown  open  to  settle- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  7 

ment  the  lands  of  the  Western  Reserve,  beyond  the 
Ohio  River. 

John  and  his  seven  brothers  sold  their  houses 
and  lands,  loaded  goods  and  food  on  wagons,  said 
good-by  to  all  they  had  known,  and  set  out  toward 
the  wild  West.  Two  of  the  brothers,  on  horses, 
herded  the  cattle  that  followed  the  wagons ;  John 
rode  ahead,  a  rifle  across  the  saddle  pommel,  and 
Jesse,  his  eleven-year-old  son,  proudly  drove  one 
of  the  teams.  Thus  they  journeyed  through  the 
forests,  crossed  the  mountains  of  Virginia,  and 
came  down  to  the  plains  of  the  Ohio  Valley. 

They  made  their  last  camp  in  Miami  County, 
Ohio,  not  far  from  a  log  cabin  on  Stillwater  Creek, 
where  a  little  girl  named  Rebecca  Yount  lay  awake 
at  night,  hearing  the  snuffling  and  snarling  of  pan 
thers  that  scratched  at  the  log  walls  of  the  pig-pen. 
Nine  years  later,  when  she  was  eighteen,  this  girl 
married  Jesse  Hoover,  and  it  was  she  who  was  des 
tined  one  day  to  hold  her  great-grandson  Herbert 
Hoover  in  her  lap  and  console  him  with  cookies 
because  the  big  boys  had  gone  hunting  without 
him. 

Rebecca,  girl  and  woman,  was  remarkable  for  an 
indomitable  strength  of  purpose,  a  great  capacity 
for  work,  and  an  extraordinary  executive  ability. 
She  bore  and  reared  to  manhood  and  womanhood 
nine  children,  and  she  adopted  and  mothered  nine 
teen  more. 


8  THE  MAKING  OF 

She  was  a  noted  housekeeper  of  Miami  County ; 
her  cured  meats,  homespun  linens,  and  patchwork 
quilts  were  famous  in  the  country-side.  Nothing 
was  wasted  in  her  hands.  In  the  autumn  she  tried 
out  the  year's  supply  of  lard;  she  made  sausages, 
head-cheese  and  pickled  pig's-feet;  she  made  her 
soap  by  leaching  wood-ashes  and  boiling  the  lye 
with  waste  scraps  of  fat.  When  her  carefully 
turned  and  made-over  gowns  were  past  use  they 
were  cut  down  and  made  dainty  with  fresh  ker 
chiefs  for  the  girls ;  when  no  one  could  longer  wear 
them  the  larger  pieces  were  used  for  patchwork 
quilts,  the  rest  was  cut  into  strips,  sewed  together, 
and  wound  into  balls  during  the  winter  evenings. 
Her  loom  transformed  them  into  serviceable  rugs. 

Nor  did 'her  duties  end  with  her  own  household 
and  the  care  of  her  twenty-eight  children.  She 
was  a  Friend,  a  member  of  the  Society,  and  she 
felt  the  responsibility  of  that  citizenship.  Her 
opinions  were  a  force  not  only  in  the  community 
but  in  the  state.  For  many  years  she  was  an 
elder;  at  Yearly  Meeting  she  addressed  the  As 
sembly,  and  the  entire  ministry  of  the  West  was 
profoundly  influenced  by  her. 

At  the  age  of  ninety-four  she  still  kept  herself 
informed  in  national  politics,  saying:  "As  long 
as  I  live  under  the  government  of  our  country  I 
think  it  right  that  I  should  know  what  that  govern 
ment  is  doing,  and  that  I  should  form  my  opinions 


HERBERT  HOOVER 

upon  it,  with  God's  help,  and  be  ready  to  express 

than.99 

This  was  the  woman  who  at  the  age  of  fifty-three 
counseled  her  husband  to  leave  their  lifelong  home 
and  go  farther  west,  in  order  to  provide  for  the 
future  of  their  children  and  grandchildren  in  a  new 
country.  Free  land  in  Ohio  was  becoming  hard  to 
find.  The  original  homesteads  were  not  large 
enough  for  the  whole  family,  and  Mary  Davis 
Hoover,  the  wife  of  Rebecca's  son  Eli,  wished  her 
children  to  have  farms  of  their  own.  Mary  was 
not  strong;  she  feared  she  had  not  much  longer  to 
live,  and  her  flushed  cheeks  grew  redder  with  ex 
citement  while  she  urged  her  husband  to  make 
haste  in  finding  land  for  the  three  boys. 

So  Eli  and  two  of  his  brothers  setiput  for  the 
West.  When  they  returned,  reporting  that  in 
Iowa  there  were  thousands  of  acres  of  good  land 
open  to  homesteading,  and  that  it  was  bare  prairie, 
unencumbered  with  the  heart-breaking  heavy 
forests  whose  destruction  cost  so  much  labor  and 
time,  Rebecca  and  her  husband  were  persuaded 
that  it  was  best  to  move. 

The  next  spring  they  left  Miami  County,  the 
only  home  they  remembered,  and  went  out  to  the 
prairies.  Eli  and  his  brothers  went  with  them,  but 
Rebecca  took  Mary's  five  children  as  her  own. 
Mary  had  died  in  the  winter;  she  was  not  to  see 
the  land  she  had  wanted  for  her  boys.  Had  she 


10  THE  MAKING  OF 

lived,  Herbert  Hoover's  father  might  have  been 
a  farmer,  instead  of  a  blacksmith  who  later  left  his 
forge  and  became  a  dealer  in  farm  machinery. 

For  Jesse,  the  middle  one  of  Mary's  sons,  was 
more  interested  in  farm  tools  than  in  using  them. 
His  grandfather  and  uncles  staked  out  their  home 
steads  on  the  plains  of  central  Iowa,  midway  be 
tween  the  Iowa  and  Cedar  rivers,  and  their  houses, 
clustered  around  the  meeting-house,  made  the  little 
town  of  West  Branch,  named  in  memory  of  the 
home  town  left  behind  in  Ohio.  Jesse's  brothers 
ranged  far  over  the  rolling  miles  of  wild  grass, 
where  deer  browsed  and  whirring  multitudes  of 
prairie-chickens  fed,  but  Jesse  liked  best  to  play 
in  the  farm  tool-shed. 

On  rainy  Seventh-Day  afternaons  he  watched 
Uncle  Benajah  heating  a  plowshare  in  glowing 
coals,  sharpening  it  with  shrewd  blows,  and  plung 
ing  it,  hissing,  into  the  tempering  water.  Unper- 
ceived  by  Grandmother  Eebecca,  he  carried  to  the 
meeting-house  on  First-Day  morning  a  few  nails 
or  a  home-made  hinge,  hidden  in  his  pocket,  and 
touched  them  now  and  then  during  the  long,  rever 
ent  silences  in  which  a  small  boy's  dangling  legs 
grew  weary. 

On  the  porch  of  the  meeting-house  he  first  met 
the  brown-haired,  gray-eyed  little  girl  Huldah 
Randall  Minthorn.  Her  mother  had  brought  her 
by  stage  from  Detroit,  with  her  six  brothers  and 


HERBERT  HOOVER  11 

sisters ;  the  father  was  following  more  slowly,  with 
two  beautiful  Percheron  horses.  Huldah  told 
Jesse  at  once  about  the  horses ;  they  had  come  with 
the  family  all  the  way  from  Toronto,  Canada,  and 
every  one  on  the  boat  had  admired  them.  Their 
legs  were  as  huge  as  trees,  she  said,  and  their  skins 
were  soft  and  shiny  like  silk. 

Even  then  there  was  a  beauty  and  a  grace  about 
the  little  Huldah  Minthorn.  They  were  a  legacy 
from  that  William  Minthorn  who  had  sailed  from 
England  in  1725,  and  who,  with  his  wife,  had  died 
on  the  long,  stormy  voyage,  leaving  his  four  small 
sons  to  land  alone  on  the  coast  of  America.  Amid 
the  forests  of  Connecticut,  through  the  hardships 
of  pioneer  times  and  the  Indian  wars,  these  boys 
and  their  son's  sons  had  never  lost  a  love  of  beauty 
and  of  learning.  The  third  William  Minthorn  had 
been  a  college  student  in  Hartford.  His  grandson, 
Huldah 's  father,  carried  in  his  saddle-bags  across 
Canada,  the  Great  Lakes,  Michigan,  Indiana  and 
Illinois,  down  into  Iowa,  his  few  cherished  books. 

Mary  Wesley  Minthorn,  Huldah 's  mother,  was 
a  tiny,  bright-eyed  woman  whose  quick  smile 
warred  with  her  smoothly  banded  hair  and  Quaker 
bonnet.  In  her  soul  she  secretly  fought  with  a 
passion  for  color,  especially  purple.  Her  gowns 
were  gray  or  sober  brown,  with  a  white  kerchief 
neatly  folded  across  the  breast ;  her  bonnets  were 
gray,  tied  with  strings  of  white  lawn,  and  she 


12  THE  MAKING  OF 

turned  her  thoughts  away  from  ribbons.  But 
woven  coverlets  were  a  snare  to  her.  Her  skill 
with  the  loom  was  a  housewifely  talent,  not  blame 
worthy,  but  in  her  own  conscience  she  sometimes 
felt  that  she  took  too  great  delight  in  it,  and  in  the 
making  of  designs  for  the  weaving.  She  devised 
them  herself,  drawing  them  accurately  to  scale; 
she  colored  them,  feeling  pleasure  in  each  brush 
stroke,  and  she  never  wove  two  coverlets  alike. 
All  her  love  of  beauty  went  into  those  drawings, 
into  the  dyeing  of  bright-colored  hanks  of  thread, 
and  into  the  hours  when  she  sat  before  her  loom, 
watching  the  small  patterns  grow  large  beneath 
her  flying  fingers.  She  sometimes  feared  that 
these  coverlets  were  a  sinful  indulgence,  but  she 
never  quite  felt  that  she  must  give  them  up. 

There  was  a  fine,  strong  spirit  in  her  that  rose 
to  meet  and  conquer  life.  Her  husband  had 
hardly  arrived  with  the  Percheron  horses,  staked 
out  his  homestead,  and  built  a  shelter  for  his 
family,  when  he  died.  She  was  left  with  seven 
young  children,  a  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  un 
broken  prairie,  and  the  team.  On  the  morning 
when  her  husband  lay  in  his  coffin  she  stood  beside 
it  in  her  Quaker  bonnet  and  shawl,  her  hands 
folded  on  her  breast,  and  made  a  vow. 

"I  will  take  care  of  the  children,"  she  said.  "I 
will  feed  them  and  clothe  them  and  bring  them  up 
to  be  God-fearing  men  and  women.  And  every 


HERBERT  HOOVER  13 

one  of  them  shall  have  a  university  education." 
She  did  these  things,  alone.  Such  neighborly 
help  as  she  was  forced  to  accept  in  the  heavy  field 
work  she  scrupulously  repaid.  For  seventeen 
years  she  managed  the  farm  and  the  household; 
she  and  her  children  hoed,  cooked,  scrubbed,  saved, 
and  prayed.  At  the  end  of  that  time  each  of  her 
children  had  received  the  best  of  schooling,  her 
two  sons  had  graduated  with  honors  from  Iowa 
State  University,  and  her  daughter  Huldah,  after 
two  years  in  a  private  school  and  one  term  in  the 
university,  was  happily  married  to  Jesse  Hoover.1 
The  village  remembered  that  autumn  because 
it  was  the  one  in  which  the  first  threshing-machine 
appeared  in  that  part  of  Iowa.  It  was  a  crude, 
stationary  affair,  whose  wheels  were  driven  by 
two  horses  walking  slowly  in  an  endless  circle. 
But  it  was  a  marvel  to  the  farmers,  who  had  never 
seen  anything  like  it.  It  had  been  shipped  in 
sections  from  the  East  and  no  one  was  able  to 
put  it  together  until  Jesse  Hoover  saw  it.  He 
studied  its  parts  and,  carefully  assembled  them, 
and  the  machine  worked. 

There  was  significance  in  the  incident  of  the 
threshing-machine;  it  marked  the  passing  of  a 
period  in  American  history.  The  frontier  had 
gone ;  agriculture  was  established ;  the  era  of  the 
machine  had  come.  The  Civil  War  was  lately 

i  Iowa  City,  March  12,  1870. 


14  THE  MAKING  OF 

ended;  manufacturing  was  securely  enthroned  in 
the  North,  and  modern  industry  was  well  started 
on  that  course  destined  inevitably  to  lead  to  the 
growth  of  great  cities  and  corporations,  and  tre 
mendous  concentration  of  wealth  and  power. 

Four  years  later,  in  a  small  brown  cottage  near 
Jesse  Hoover's  blacksmith  shop,  Herbert  Clark 
Hoover  was  born.1  His  life  began  at  the  end  of 
one  pioneer  age  and  the  beginning  of  another. 

The  spirit  of  five  generations  of  American  pio 
neers  was  his  spirit ;  the  blood  of  Andrew  Hoover, 
of  John  Hoover,  of  Rebecca  Yount,  of  William 
Minthorn  and  Mary  Wesley  was  in  his  veins. 
Their  lives  had  gone  to  the  making  of  America; 
his  life  was  to  be  part  of  the  future. 

A  LETTER  FROM  HERBERT  HOOVER'S  AUNT 

January  21,  1920. 
DEAR  DAUGHTER  : 

Thy  letter  received,  and  I  will  tell  the  things  I  know, 
for  as  thee  says  the  story  should  be  the  truth.  1  well 
remember  the  day  Herbert  was  born.  I  had  spent  a  day 
with  Huldah,  visiting  and  sewing.  Thee  was  with  me, 
Jesse  and  Huldah  always  made  much  of  thee,  because 
thee  represented  the  little  girl  they  hoped  soon  to  have. 

Next  morning  early,  Jesse  came  and  tapped  on  my 
window  and  said,  "Well,  we  have  another  General  Grant 
at  our  house.2  Huldah  would  like  to  see  thee."  So 
we  went,  thee  and  I. 

1  August  10,  1874. 

2  U.  S.  Grant  was  then  President  of  the  United  States. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  15 

They  then  lived  in  a  little  house  by  the  blacksmith 
shop.  It  was  a  tiny  house,  but  always  so  clean  and  neat, 
for  Huldah  was  a  nice  housekeeper  and  kept  house  nice, 
whether  it  was  small  or  large.  It  was,  however,  the 
kind  of  good  housekeeping  that  does  not  destroy  the 
family.  Children  always  had  a  good  time  there.  There 
was  a  hobby  horse,  and  balls  and  tops,  but  there  was  a 
place  for  them  when  they  were  not  in  use.  With  Huldah, 
things  were  always  finished.  I  can  see  that  bureau 
drawer  now,  with  everything  ready  for  the  coming 
event,  all  made  by  hand,  for  none  of  us  had  a  sewing 
machine  in  those  days. 

Herbert  was  a  sweet  baby  that  first  day,  round  and 
plump,  and  looked  about  very  cordial  at  everybody. 


THE  MAKING  OF 
HERBERT  HOOVER 

CHAPTER  I 

HIS  earliest  impression  was  of  sunshine,  green 
leaves,  and  his  mother's  voice  talking  to 
God.  This  was  in  the  sitting-room,  after  break 
fast.  He  and  his  brother  Tad  climbed  into 
chairs  and  sat  with  dangling  legs  while  his  father 
read  in  a  solemn  voice  from  the  large  black  Bible. 
His  mother  held  Sister  May  on  her  lap.  Then 
they  all  knelt  down  on  the  rag  carpet  with  their 
elbows  on  the  chair  seats,  and  after  a  little  silence 
his  mother  began  to  speak. 

He  did  not  clearly  understand  what  she  said,  but 
the  sound  of  her  voice  was  beautiful.  He  looked 
between  his  fingers  and  saw  the  morning  sunshine 
on  the  row  of  plants  in  the  window.  It  lay  in  a 
black-barred  oblong  on  the  floor.  A  corner  of  it 
reached  across  the  folds  of  his  mother's  gray  dress 
and  touched  her  hair,  and  her  hair  shone.  The 
room  was  very  still.  This  stillness,  the  sunshine 
on  the  green  leaves,  and  the  low  humming  of  the 
tea-kettle  on  the  kitchen  stove,  seemed  part  of  the 


18  THE  MAKING  OF 

Presence  to  which  his  mother  spoke.  The  Pres 
ence  itself  filled  the  room  with  a  strange  quiet 
friendliness. 

He  wriggled  a  little,  but  noiselessly,  and  looked 
severely  to  see  if  Sister  May  was  keeping  still. 
Then,  with  a  little  bustle  of  moving  chairs,  they 
all  rose.  His  father  put  on  his  hat  and  coat  to  go 
to  the  store,  and  his  mother  began  gathering  up 
the  breakfast  dishes. 

1  i  Bun  and  play,  Bertie, ' '  she  said.  ' '  But  do  not 
get  thy  feet  wet. ' '  She  wrapped  a  muffler  around 
his  throat  and  buttoned  his  coat.  Then  she  kissed 
him.  Her  hands  were  swift  and  firm,  but  gentle, 
and  there  was  a  smile  in  her  eyes.  He  squirmed 
away  quickly,  because  he  was  in  a  hurry  to  get 
outdoors  with  his  sled. 

The  house  stood  in  a  big  yard.  In  front  of  it 
was  a  row  of  six  large  maple-trees  whose  trunks 
made  gray  shadows  on  the  snow.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  road  not  far  away  was  the  little  brown 
house  where  he  had  lived  when  a  baby,  and  beyond 
it  smoke  was  curling  up  from  the  blacksmith  shop 
that  once  had  been  his  father's. 

There  was  a  sudden  jangle  of  sleigh-bells,  and 
Uncle  John  Minthorn's  sleigh  flashed  past,  drawn 
by  two  plunging,  steaming  horses.  The  boy  had 
an  instant's  vision  of  Dr.  John,  half  standing, 
his  weight  on  the  taut  reins  in  one  hand,  a  whip  in 
the  other,  his  teeth  showing  in  a  smile.  Then  he 


HERBERT  HOOVER  19 

was  gone,  in  a  flurry  of  snow.  Dr.  John's  horses 
were  wild,  half -broken  things;  he  drove  like  the 
wind,  and  the  sleigh  was  not  one  to  which  small 
boys  could  fasten  their  sleds. 

Bertie  dragged  his  sled  along  the  path  by  the 
kitchen  door,  under  the  eaves  fringed  with  icicles. 
A  long  one  hung  close  to  his  mittened  hand,  but 
Mother  had  forbidden  him  to  eat  icicles.  Behind 
the  house  was  the  garden,  where  the  snow  humped 
over  buried  potato-vines  and  lay  in  a  drift  beside 
the  grape-arbor.  The  bare  brown  vines  were 
coated  with  ice,  and  made  a  crackling  sound  when 
he  kicked  a  post.  The  house  was  at  the  foot  of 
Chamber's  Hill;  tugging  the  sled,  he  trudged  up 
the  slope,  his  short  legs  plunging  through  the 
drifts. 

The  hill  was  alive  with  swooping  sleds,  with 
shouts,  laughter,  boys  rolling  in  the  snow,  little 
girls  squealing  with  excitement.  He  was  now  in 
his  own  world,  surrounded  by  innumerable  cross 
currents  of  likes  and  dislikes,  fears  and  admira 
tions.  George  and  Mamie  Coombs  were  there; 
Ettie  and  Willie  and  Eddie  Smith;  Harriette, 
Blanche,  and  Theodore  Miles,  and  many  others. 
Among  them  he  saw  enemies  and  allies — the  big 
boy  who  had  rubbed  his  face  with  snow,  Tad  1  his 
own  big  brother,  who  had  valiantly  defended  him, 

i  Theodore  Jesse  Hoover,  three  and  a  half  years  older  than  Her 
bert  Hoover,  now  head  of  the  mining  department  of  Stanford  Uni 
versity. 


20  THE  MAKING  OF 

and  the  tattle-tale  who  had  rushed  home  to  tell 
about  the  fight.  They  shouted  to  him,  he  shouted 
back,  and  continued  his  way  up  the  hill,  imperturb 
able,  self-contained,  and  serious.  His  purpose 
was  to  reach  the  top  and  slide  down  without  delay. 

He  stopped,  panting,  at  the  summit.  The  long, 
hard-packed  track  wound  below  him,  past  Joseph 
Cook's  leafless  orchard,  down  the  breathless  drop 
by  the  cottonwood  trees,  across  the  dangerous  lane 
where  teams  might  be  met,  and  out  on  the  curve 
that  ended  at  the  bridge.  He  drew  up  his  sled 
to  make  the  plunge,  and  paused.  Willie  Smith 
stood  before  him,  holding  the  rope  of  a  slim  new 
sled,  a  sled  striped  with  red  paint,  shining  with 
varnish,  elegantly  formed  and  shod  with  steel 
runners. 

1  a  got  a  new  sled,"  said  Willie.  Bertie  ap 
proached  and  looked  at  it  thoughtfully. 

"My  father  made  mine,"  he  announced  at  last 
with  satisfaction. 

"Mine  's  got  steel  runners,"  said  Willie. 

"It  's  a  good  sled,"  said  Bertie,  and  prepared 
to  slide. 

"You  haven't  got  steel  runners,"  Willie  con 
tinued. 

"No,"  said  Bertie.  "Mine  are  iron.  My 
father  used  to  be  a  blacksmith  when  I  was  little." 

"Mine  's  the  best  sled,"  Willie  insisted.  "I  '11 
trade  a  ride." 


HERBERT  HOOVER  21 

"No,"  said  Bertie.     "I  like  my  sled." 

"I  wouldn't  trade  mine  for  two  of  it,"  said 
Willie. 

' '  There  are  n  't  two  of  it, ' '  Bertie  remarked.  ' '  I 
got  the  only  one  like  it  in  the  world. ' ' 

There  was  a  pause.  "What  '11  you  give  me  if 
I  '11  tradel"  asked  Willie. 

"What  does  thee  want  to  trade  for?  Thee  has 
a  good  sled,"  said  Bertie. 

His  mother,  coming  to  the  doorway  at  dinner 
time,  saw  her  small  son  in  the  distance,  pulling  a 
smaller  cousin  homeward  on  a  bright  new  sled. 
She  waited  under  the  maples  till  the  boy  reached 
her. 

"Where  did  thee  get  the  new  sled,  Bertie?" 

"I  traded  for  it,"  said  Bertie,  smiling  back  at 
her.  "Willie  wanted  to  trade.  Willie  likes  my 
old  sled  better.  Oh,  Mother,  look,  it  's  got  real 
steel  runners!" 

They  went  up  the  path  together,  and  the  friend 
liness  of  the  house  shut  them  all  in  once  more. 
The  house  was  like  a  small  circle  of  security  and 
warmth,  to  which  one  would  always  return.  The 
beginning  and  end  of  all  adventuring  was  there,  in 
that  sensation  of  serene  well-being  that  one  felt 
without  thinking  of  it. 

There  was  no  place  in  that  house  where  a  child 
was  not  free  to  go  and  to  be  happy.  On  stormy 
afternoons  what  romps  there  were!  Then  the 


22  THE  MAKING  OF 

cousins  would  come  to  play,  and  there  was  racing 
up  and  down  the  stairs,  and  noise,  and  laughter, 
hide- 'n '-go-seek  in  the  closets  and  behind  Mother's 
skirts  where  she  sat  demurely  sewing ;  rummaging 
in  the  cooky  jar,  and  bringing  up  of  whole  pans  of 
apples  from  the  cellar,  and  popping  of  corn  in  the 
kitchen. 

The  heart  of  it  all  was  his  mother.  She  was 
there  as  the  sunshine  was  there,  or  the  air,  a 
part  of  his  solid,  unalterable  world.  He  did  not 
imagine  any  place  or  situation  where  she  would 
not  be.  She  was  more  than  the  mother  who 
bathed  and  dressed  and  soothed  him ;  she  was  the 
order,  the  serenity,  and  the  goodness  upon  which 
life  was  built.  And  with  her,  like  a  radiance,  like 
an  emanation  from  her  smile,  from  her  slim  hands, 
from  the  sheen  on  her  brown  hair  and  the  fresh 
ness  of  her  gowns,  was  Christ. 

She  told  him  of  the  Child  in  Bethlehem ;  she  told 
him  of  the  Good  Shepherd  who  maketh  one  to  lie 
down  in  green  pastures,  who  leadeth  beside  still 
waters ;  she  told  him  of  the  Healer  at  whose  touch 
the  sick  were  made  whole  and  the  blind  were  given 
sight ;  and  she  told  him  of  the  Sacrifice  on  Calvary. 
These  remained  in  his  mind  as  characters  moving 
in  that  dim  realm  of  the  past,  of  the  future,  of  all 
that  existed  beyond  the  circle  of  his  life.  With 
them  were  Elijah  and  the  bears,  Elisha  and  the 
fiery  chariot,  Solomon,  and  David,  and  Noah.  But 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  23 

there  was  another  Christ,  the  One  to  whom  his 
mother  talked,  the  One  who  was  part  of  her  gentle 
ness  and  of  her  service  for  every  one.  It  was  He 
who  deepened  her  smile  and  made  a  light  in  her 
eyes.  This,  too,  was  a  fact  like  the  sunshine ;  one 
did  not  think  about  it,  one  simply  lived  in  it. 

On  First  Days,  bathed  and  immaculately 
dressed,  he  and  Tad  walked  sedately  to  the  meet 
ing-house,  where  God  was.  They  did  not  like  to 
go  there ;  they  would  have  preferred  wearing  their 
everyday  clothes  and  playing  in  Uncle  Laban's 
hay-scented  barn,  or  out  on  the  hillsides  with  their 
cousins.  But  that  was  the  way  the  world  was 
made ;  on  First  Days  one  went  with  all  the  village 
to  God's  house. 

The  meeting-house  stood  by  itself  in  large 
grounds.  Beside  it  was  the  graveyard  where 
Great-grandfather  Jesse  Hoover  and  Grandfather- 
Theodore  Minthorn  lay;  it  was  shivery  and  yet 
fascinating  to  think  of  that.  Down  the  long  tree- 
shaded  street  teams  came  slowly ;  there  was  a  quiet 
little  eddy  of  people  where  the  buggies  stopped ; 
uncles  and  aunts  and  cousins  climbed  out  and 
waited  while  the  horses  were  tied  in  the  long 
sheds  behind  the  meeting-house.  There  was 
Grandfather  Eli,  with  Great-Uncle  William  and 
Uncle  Benjamin  Miles;  there  was  Grandmother 
Minthorn,  a  figure  like  a  sparrow  in  the  gray 
bonnet  and  shawl,  beside  Uncle  Penn.  All  the 


24  THE  MAKING  OF 

cousins  from  the  country  were  there.  What  news 
there  was  to  tell  and  to  hear !  But  this  was  First 
Day;  children  should  be  seen  and  not  heard. 
Silence  must  be  kept  like  a  lock  on  eager  lips. 
Even  grown-ups  spoke  little,  in  subdued  tones. 

1  l  I  am  glad  to  see  thee,  Huldah. ' ' 

"How  is  thee,  Mother f" 

"God's  goodness  is  about  me  always. " 

His  mother,  holding  Sister  May  by  the  hand, 
went  with  Grandmother  through  the  women's 
door.  But  he  was  a  man,  and  entered  the  dim 
stillness  of  the  meeting-house  through  the  men's 
door  with  Tad  and  their  father.  Quickly  he 
climbed  on  a  bench,  and  looking  over  the  high 
partition  he  saw  the  rows  of  women's  bonnets, 
bent  forward  a  little,  hiding  their  faces.  He  saw 
his  mother  quietly  taking  her  place  with  the 
others,  and  before  she  should  observe  his  head 
above  the  partition  he  slid  down  beside  Tad,  and 
could  see  her  no  longer. 

He  sat  on  a  high,  hard  bench,  and  looked  at  his 
great-uncle  John  Y.,  who  sat  in  a  high  place  among 
the  elders.1  They  were  solemn  men  with  long 
beards,  ranged  in  four  rows  at  the  end  of  the  room, 
one  row  above  another,  so  that  all  their  faces 
looked  gravely  down  upon  him.  And  he  thought 
of  God  as  a  grave  Being  with  a  beard,  who  never 

i  John  Y.  Hoover  occupied  a  seat  next  but  one  to  the  head  of 
the  meeting.  Later  he  became  the  regular  pastor  of  the  Friends' 
Church  at  West  Branch. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  25 

smiled.  Then  the  shuffling  of  feet  ended,  and 
silence  filled  the  place. 

The  silence  was  like  a  weight.  It  grew  slowly 
heavier ;  it  became  burdensome ;  it  became  intoler 
able.  He  turned  his  head,  a  little  by  a  little,  and 
looked  at  the  intent,  serious  faces  about  him. 
He  looked  at  the  ceiling.  He  looked  at  the  cracks 
in  the  wall.  His  legs  began  to  ache.  Suddenly, 
to  his  surprise,  they  straightened  vigorously  and 
his  boots  struck  the  bench  before  him  with  a  loud 
noise.  The  gentle  reproach  in  his  father's  eyes 
made  him  ashamed.  He  sat  up  straight.  The 
silence  continued. 

Then  he  heard  his  mother 's  voice.  He  could  not 
see  her  because  of  the  high  partition  between  the 
women  and  the  men,  but  he  saw  the  elders '  faces 
turned  gravely  toward  the  point  beyond  it,  where 
she  was.  Her  voice,  low  and  vibrant,  was  like 
the  spirit  of  her,  without  her  body.  It  came 
across  the  partition  to  him,  and  spoke  of  Christ. 
It  said  that  He  was  all-merciful  and  that  His  love 
was  about  them  always ;  it  said  that  as  they  served 
and  loved  one  another,  so  they  served  and  loved 
Him,  and  that  to  live  in  Christ  was  a  joy  beyond 
telling  and  a  peace  beyond  understanding. 

Her  voice  ceased,  and  there  was  silence  again. 
It  continued  forever,  through  an  eternity  in  which 
an  infinite  boredom  descended  upon  his  spirit. 
His  body  ceased  to  ache.  His  mind  became  numb. 


26  THE  MAKING  OF 

He  no  longer  saw  with  interest  the  slow  going  to 
sleep  of  old  Benjamin  Winters.  His  eyes  no 
longer  followed  up  and  down  the  cracks  in  the 
wall.  He  simply  sat  there. 

When  at  last  this  stupor  ended,  when  he  could 
slide  stiffly  down  from  the  bench  and  follow  his 
father  out  into  the  world  of  sound  and  movement, 
he  was  like  a  prisoner  released. 

Under  the  trees  in  front  of  the  meeting-house 
families  were  reassembling,  in  an  atmosphere  of 
quietly  happy  relaxation.  There  were  smiles, 
nods,  low-voiced  talk  of  the  service  and  of  weather 
and  crops.  His  father  took  the  soft,  sleepy  May 
from  Grandmother's  arms  and  hoisted  her  upon 
one  shoulder.  Mother's  face  was  bright ;  he  knew 
without  hearing  the  talk  of  it  how  wonderfully 
she  had  been  moved  by  the  Spirit.  He  hastened 
to  meet  his  boy  cousins,  and  heard  that  George 
had  got  a  pet  raccoon  and  had  been  promised  a 
gun  for  hunting  rabbits.  The  boys  stood  together, 
talking  soberly  about  it,  their  eyes  shining.  Long 
ing  to  run,  to  jump,  to  shout  in  the  joy  of  their 
release  from  meeting,  they  were  held  motionless 
by  the  eyes  of  the  community  upon  them. 

He  had  his  duties;  there  was  the  wood-box  to 
be  filled,  the  garden  to  be  weeded  in  summer,  er 
rands  to  be  run.  Playthings  must  be  put  away, 
face  and  hands  must  be  washed;  clothes  must  be 
kept  clean  and  whole.  He  must  tell  the  truth 


HERBERT  HOOVER  27 

always,  and  be  obedient,  and  always  help  any  one 
whenever  he  could.  But  these  things  were  to  be 
done  because  doing  them  made  happiness ;  it  made 
a  small  glow  of  happiness  for  him  who  did  them, 
and  a  large,  vague  happiness  somewhere  in 
heaven. 

When  his  tasks  were  done  he  could  always  play ; 
he  could  run  and  jump  and  shout  as  much  as  he 
liked.  There  was  the  hill  to  slide  upon  in  winter, 
and  in  the  spring  when  sap  was  running  boys  could 
make  maple  sugar  from  the  trees  on  it.  The  big 
ger  boys  bored  holes  in  the  south  side  of  the  tree 
trunks,  hung  pails  to  catch  the  dripping  sap,  built 
a  fire.  Bertie  ran  up  and  down,  helping  to  empty 
the  pails,  stirring  the  boiling  syrup,  and  carrying 
wood.  At  last  they  all  fell  to  with  spoons  and  ate 
the  hot  sugar  from  the  kettle.  Then  there  was 
the  brook  where  one  went  fishing  with  a  crooked 
stick  for  a  pole  and  angleworms  on  the  hook,  and 
caught  sometimes  a  "mud-cat"  five  inches  long. 
There  was  Uncle  Laban's  barn,  where  the  dusty 
sunlight  fell  through  the  cracks  on  mounds  of  hay, 
and  one  could  do  great  daring  jumps  from  rafters, 
while  all  the  little  girl  cousins  screamed  and  cov 
ered  their  eyes.  Best  of  all,  perhaps,  there  was 
Father's  store. 

The  big  building  and  the  large  dusty  yard 
beside  it,  filled  with  tools  and  farm  machinery, 
were  fascinating  to  a  curious  small  boy.  Father 


28  THE  MAKING  OF 

was  never  too  busy  to  explain  the  new  machines, 
to  show  what  made  an  engine  go,  and  how  wheels 
and  endless  belts  transmitted  power.  Most  excit 
ing  of  all,  Father  had  bought  and  erected  a  great 
new  invention,  the  sensation  of  a  summer — a 
machine  that  put  barbs  on  fence  wire. 

People  came  for  miles  to  see  it,  and  to  talk  about 
its  product.  Swiftly,  with  little  jerks,  it  pulled 
into  its  mysterious  recesses  the  shining  lengths  of 
smooth  wire  unrolling  from  a  big  spool,  and  at  the 
other  side  the  wire  came  out  with  sharp  prongs 
wrapped  about  it  at  intervals.  Farmers  looked  at 
it,  and  shook  their  heads  in  wonder.  The  speed 
of  modern  progress  amazed  them.  Here  was  a 
machine  that  made,  in  a  few  hours,  as  much  fenc 
ing  as  men  could  build  with  logs  or  field  stones  in 
weeks  of  labor.  Simply  set  posts,  stretch  this 
wire  on  them,  and  the  farm  was  fenced. 

More  conservative  men  were  opposed  to  these 
newfangled  inventions;  they  said  that  when  the 
wire  rusted  the  prongs  would  work  loose.  They 
were  right.  Two-strand  barbed  wire  was  yet 
undreamed  of ;  Jesse  Hoover,  desirous  of  improv 
ing  the  product  of  his  little  factory,  hit  on  the 
idea  of  covering  the  wire  with  tar  to  delay  its* 
rusting.  So  in  the  yard  a  fire  was  kept  burning 
beneath  a  huge  kettle  of  tar,  and  when  a  reel  was 
filled  it  was  dipped  into  the  kettle.  There  were 
no  dull  moments  there  for  Bertie. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  29 

One  day  while  he  stood  beside  the  kettle  a  ques 
tion  suddenly  occurred  to  him.  What  would  hap 
pen  if  a  blazing  stick  were  put  into  the  tar ?  Was 
tar  like  water!  Would  it  put  out  fire?  If  it  did 
not  put  out  fire,  what  would  it  do?  None  of  his 
investigations  into  the  surprising  nature  of  things 
had  given  him  any  information  by  which  to  decide 
the  question.  Tar  was  unknown  to  him ;  it  might 
do  anything. 

He  looked  about  for  some  one  to  solve  the  prob 
lem.  No  one  was  in  sight.  His  father  was  in  the 
store;  the  hired  man  had  disappeared.  He  was 
left  to  his  own  resources.  The  black  mass  in  the 
kettle  moved  turgidly,  queer  colors  quivered  on  its 
surface;  it  was  enigmatic,  challenging.  What 
would  it  do?  He  squatted  beside  the  fire-box  and 
pulled  out  a  long  flaming  stick.  He  rose.  For  an 
instant  a  sensation  like  fear  held  his  hand ;  it  was 
the  sensation  of  a  pioneer  confronting  the  immens 
ity  of  the  unknown.  Then,  with  a  courageous  ges 
ture,  he  thrust  the  brand  into  the  kettle. 

The  kettle,  too,  held  its  breath  for  an  instant. 
Then,  slow,  implacable  and  monstrous,  a  red  flame 
rose  like  a  tower.  Swiftly,  as  by  magic,  the  sky 
was  overspread  with  a  black,  thick  smoke.  He 
choked,  he  heard  shouts,  and  turning  wildly  to  run 
he  collided  with  a  leaping  figure.  The  rest  was 
delirium. 

He  saw  men  running  with  ladders  and  pails. 


30  THE  MAKING  OF 

He  saw  the  shingled  roof  of  the  store  curling,  and 
little  red  flames  running  along  the  eaves.  A  line 
of  men  reached  from  the  store  to  the  town  pump, 
and  an  endless  stream  of  half-filled  pails  leaped 
from  hand  to  hand.  He  had  a  glimpse  of  his 
father,  blackened  with  smoke,  on  the  roof,  beating 
at  the  flames  with  a  wet  sack.  He  longed  to  help, 
but  he  did  not  know  what  to  do;  and  then  his 
mother  came,  white  but  calm,  and  took  him  away. 
He  went  with  her  without  protest. 

That  night  at  the  supper-table  he  heard  his 
father  tell  how  the  store,  and  perhaps  the  town, 
had  been  saved.  The  fire,  it  was  thought,  had 
been  caused  by  the  unwatched  kettle  of  tar,  which 
must  have  boiled  over.  Bertie  said  nothing.  If 
he  had  been  asked,  he  would  have  told  what  he 
had  done,  but  no  one  asked  him.  He  sat 
unnoticed,  eating  silently.  He  was  sorry  and  ter 
rified,  yet  he  was  glad.  It  was  such  a  strange  feel 
ing  that  when  he  had  gone  to  bed  he  lay  awake  for 
a  long  time,  hearing  the  katydid  in  the  wild  crab- 
apple  tree  outside  his  window.  He  had  done  a 
frightening  thing;  the  shock  of  it  was  still  in  his 
nerves  and  the  crime  of  it  on  his  conscience,  but 
he  had  not  meant  to  do  wrong.  He  had  been  inno 
cently  experimenting,  and  the  result  was  not 
entirely  disheartening. 

"Anyway,  I  found  out  what  it  would  do,"  he 
thought.  "I  found  it  out  all  by  myself."  He 


HERBERT  HOOVER  31 

wondered  if  he  would  be  punished  if  he  told.     He  i 
thought  not.     But  he  decided  that  it  was  best  to 
keep  his  own  counsel  in  the  matter.    And  for  forty  , 
years  he  did  so. 

One  First  Day,  in  meeting,  after  the  accustomed 
silence  had  settled  down,  a  man  rose  and  began 
to  speak.  He  was  a  stranger,  newly  arrived  from 
the  East,  and  all  the  faces  turned  toward  him. 
His  eyes  were  black  and  piercing,  his  cheeks  were 
sunken,  and  his  voice  shook  every  one.  He  spoke 
of  sin  and  of  hell  where  the  worm  never  dies ;  he 
said  that  his  hearers  were  lost  in  the  ways  of 
Satan  and  that  God  called  on  them  to  repent  while 
there  was  yet  time.  His  eyes  were  full  of  a  ter 
rible  earnestness  and  his  face  was  white  and  set, 
like  those  of  the  men  who  had  put  out  the  tar  fire. 

When  he  had  finished  he  wiped  his  forehead  with 
his  hand  and  was  silent  a  moment.  Then  he  said, 
"God  moves  me  to  say  that,  Friends  willing,  I 
shall  hold  a  series  of  meetings,  beginning  to-mor 
row.  ' '  Then  he  sat  down. 

When  the  man  rose  and  went  out  they  all  began 
talking  earnestly  together  and  with  the  women. 
The  children,  wide-eyed  and  quiet,  stood  close  to 
their  parents,  listening  and  trying  to  understand 
what  had  happened. 

Nothing  was  the  same  after  that.  On  the 
streets  and  at  home  no  one  talked  of  anything  but 
the  stranger  and  his  message.  In  Father's  store 


32  THE  MAKING  OF 

the  farmers  no  longer  came  stamping  in,  smiling, 
as  they  used  to.  They  stood  in  groups  and 
argued,  with  serious  faces,  about  new  things— 
"conviction  of  sin"  and  "  sanctification. ' y 
Father's  eyes  were  worried,  and  far  into  the  night 
he  and  Mother  talked  and  prayed  together. 
Every  night  David  Updegraff  spoke  in  the  meet 
ing-house.  He  spoke  of  sin  and  the  wrath  of  God ; 
he  said  that  the  hearts  of  men  were  desperately 
wicked  and  their  feet  laid  hold  on  hell,  and  he 
begged  the  people  to  follow  in  the  way  of  salva 
tion.  Women  sobbed,  and  men  hid  their  faces. 

The  zest  was  gone  from  play.  On  the  street 
corners  groups  of  boys  stood  talking  soberly.  It 
was  said  that  the  old  ways  of  worshiping  God  were 
wrong.  Friend  Updegraff  had  been  sent  by  God 
to  tell  the  people  this.  He  said  that  the  old  ways 
were  lifeless  forms  and  that  the  true  Spirit  was  no 
longer  in  them.  Families  were  divided  by  this 
question;  one  boy's  grandmother  was  shut  in  her 
room  weeping  and  praying  day  and  night  because 
her  daughter  believed  the  stranger;  another's 
grown-up  brother  had  left  home  because  of  his 
father's  anger.  Wives  spent  nights  on  their 
knees  praying  that  their  husbands  might  see  the 
light  and  be  saved.  It  seemed  that  the  solid 
foundations  of  the  village  were  breaking  up. 

But  home  remained  a  secure  place  of  refuge. 
Nothing  could  destroy  that.  Mother  was  still 


HERBERT  HOOVER  33 

gentle.  Father  was  still  kind.  And  though  they 
were  more  grave  and  their  prayers  were  longer 
and  more  earnest,  one  still  felt  a  steady  faith  that 
all  was  well. 

Through  it  all,  home  emerged  unshaken,  and 
somehow  with  a  deeper,  more  beautiful  meaning. 
The  stranger  had  brought  joy  to  Mother;  she  had 
found  a  new  spiritual  knowledge.  She  was  sanc 
tified  and  would  never  sin  again.  These  things 
were  beyond  a  small  boy's  understanding,  but  to 
his  mother  they  meant  a  living  nearness  to  God 
that  made  her  life  more  full  of  service  for  others, 
and  it  was  through  her  that  he  saw  life.  There 
were  many  ways  of  worshiping  God,  it  seemed, 
and  people  thought  of  Him  in  many  different  ways. 
But  through  all  the  confusion  his  mother  remained 
a  Christian,  and  unchanged. 

The  meeting-house  was  changed.  The  partition 
between  men  and  women  was  taken  away,  and  an 
organ  was  brought  in.  Hymns  were  sung  now 
during  the  services,  there  was  a  minister  who 
stood  behind  a  pulpit  and  preached,  and  First  Day 
had  a  new  name;  it  was  called  Sunday.  There 
were  names  for  all  the  other  days,  too,  and  many 
of  the  boys  no  longer  said  "thee"  but  "you" 
instead.  The  new  words  had  a  strange  sound  on 
the  tongue,  so  that  it  was  fun  to  say  them.  But 
it  was  not  kind  to  use  them  before  the  older  people 
who  had  left  the  meeting-house  and  built  a  small 


34  THE  MAKING  OF 

one  of  their  own,  with  the  partition  dividing  it, 
where  they  could  worship  in  the  way  they  had 
always  known.  So  Bertie  learned  another  lan 
guage  than  the  "  plain  speech "  of  his  fathers— 
the  new  one  brought  by  David  Updegraff. 

Everything  outside  his  home  was  changing,  like 
an  eddy  around  a  safe  rock.  Uncle  Laban  and 
Aunt  Agnes  and  the  playmate  cousins  had  gone 
away  to  a  place  called  Indian  Territory.  Grand 
father  Eli  had  come  back  from  Hardin  County  and 
started  a  pump-factory.  The  pump  was  another 
ingenious  invention  making  life  almost  too  easy 
for  farmers.  Uncle  Benajah  had  one,  and  rapidly 
others  appeared  everywhere,  and  all  the  cattle 
learned  to  pump  their  own  drinking-water.  The 
cows  stood  on  a  wooden  platform  that  slowly  sunk 
under  their  weight  and  the  water  poured  into  a 
trough.  When  they  had  drunk  it  they  walked 
away  and  the  platform  rose  again  and  stood  ready 
for  the  next  cow. 

Grandfather's  factory  was  an  interesting  place 
of  carpenters'  benches  and  forges,  where  six  or 
seven  farmers'  sons,  not  contented  to  stay  on  the 
old  homesteads,  worked  under  Grandfather's 
direction.  It  was  somewhat  like  a  grown-up 
school,  and  somewhat  like  Father's  store.  Bertie 
played  about  among  the  men  while  they  worked 
and  brought  them  dippers  of  water  from  the  pail 
that  stood  among  heaps  of  shavings  in  a  corner. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  35 

They  were  big,  jolly  men  who  called  one  another 
by  their  first  names,  had  friendly  wrestling- 
matches  at  noon  and  took  great  pride  in  the  pumps 
they  made. 

They  made  Bertie  a  hatchet  to  play  with,  and 
after  he  had  tried  it  on  sticks  and  found  that  it 
would  not  cut  iron  he  laid  his  forefinger  on  a  block 
and  chopped  it.  He  yelled  in  amazement  and 
consternation.  Red  blood  ran  out  of  his  finger, 
over  the  chopping-block  and  the  men's  clothes. 
It  would  not  stop  running.  No  one  could  stop  it. 
Grandfather  caught  him  up  like  a  baby  and  ran 
to  Dr.  John's  office. 

"Sit  still,"  Uncle  John  said  sternly.  And  he 
sat  still,  shaken  by  frightened  sobs,  while  Uncle 
John  sewed  the  finger  with  a  needle  and  thread 
and  tied  it  up  in  a  bundle  of  bandages.  "Young 
man,  thee  almost  cut  thy  finger  off,"  Uncle  John 
said.  '  '  But  thee  is  a  brave  boy.  Here  is  a  penny. 
Go  spend  it  for  sweets,  but  do  not  play  with 
hatchets  any  more."  An  angry  scar  remained 
always  on  his  finger  to  remind  him  of  those  words. 
But  he  did  play  with  hatchets,  for  now  he  knew 
their  dangerous  nature  and  how  to  manage  them. 

He  had  been  all  winter  in  school  and  was  tri 
umphantly  through  the  primer  class  when  in  the 
spring  Uncle  Laban  reappeared,  and  Bertie  was 
told  that  he  was  to  visit  his  cousins  in  Indian  Ter 
ritory.  Then  he  learned  how  large  the  world  is. 


36  THE  MAKING  OF 

They  rode  for  days  on  a  railway  train,  seeing 
fields  and  forests  and  towns  going  past  the  win 
dows  ;  then  they  rode  on  a  stage-coach  through  an 
exciting  country  of  wooded  hills,  and  at  last  they 
arrived  at  a  big  stone  house  beside  the  road  and 
there  were  Aunt  Agnes  and  Blanche  and  Har- 
riette  and  Theodore  Miles,  just  as  they  had  been 
in  West  Branch.  It  was  all  a  very  long  way  from 
Father  and  Mother.  However,  he  manfully  con 
cealed  the  lonesomeness  inside  him. 

The  cousins  were  very  much  excited.  They 
laughed  a  great  deal,  and  he  did  not  know  the 
joke.  But  he  knew  they  were  concealing  some 
thing.  They  showed  him  the  dogs,  and  the  cat 
and  kittens,  and  the  brook  where  they  waded. 
Then  they  led  him  suddenly  around  the  corner  of 
Uncle  Laban  's  office  and  there  by  an  oak-tree  stood 
a  live  Indian. 

He  was  a  tall,  fearsome-looking  man  with  a 
leather-colored  skin.  A  red-and-orange  blanket 
concealed  his  arms,  and  long  feathers  stood  up 
above  his  fierce  black  eyes  and  made  an  angry- 
looking  ruff  down  his  back.  The  shock  of  such  an 
apparition  halted  Bertie  with  a  jerk.  He  heard 
his  heart  thumping.  This  must  be  Chief  Joseph, 
the  terrible  Indian  who  long  before,  at  a  lecture 
in  West  Branch,  had  fired  guns  until  Tad  had 
been  brought  home  yelling  with  fright.  Tad  had 


HERBERT  HOOVER  37 

been  saved ;  Father  had  been  there  to  rescue  him. 
But  there  was  no  one  to  rescue  Bertie  now.  The 
cousins  had  retreated  behind  him,  leaving  him  un 
supported,  and  the  Indian  fixed  him  with  an  awful 
gaze.  He  stood  his  ground  a  moment,  gulped, 
and  then  advanced;  "How  do  you  do?"  he  quav 
ered  politely. 

The  cousins  uttered  a  disappointed  yell  that 
was  music  in  his  ears,  but  he  gave  no  sign.  He 
stood  with  his  legs  a  little  apart,  his  hands  in  his 
trousers  pockets,  and  gazed  his  fill  at  the  Indian. 
"What  kind -of  a  bird  did  those  feathers  grow 
on!"  he  inquired  at  length.  The  Indian  merely 
grunted,  but  half  an  hour  later  he  gave  him  a  strip 
of  soft  leather  cunningly  embroidered  with  beads. 

He  stayed  a  long  time  at  Uncle  Laban's.  The 
rolling  prairie  land  and  the  long  tree-shaded 
street  of  West  Branch  became  like  a  dream;  he 
lived  now  in  a  world  of  trees  and  hills,  of  Indian 
wickiups,  stolid  squaws,  brown  bright-eyed 
papooses  carried  in  beaded  baskets,  and  curious 
playthings.  There  were  strange  rocks  of  all 
kinds  along  the  brooks  and  on  the  hills.  There 
was  one  called  flint,  that  made  arrow-heads,  and  a 
gritty  one  called  sandstone,  and  one  called  keel 
that  made  marks  like  chalk.  There  were  curious 
curled  ones  like  stone  snails,  and  others  that 
sparkled,  and  others  that  were  the  size  and  shape 


38  THE  MAKING  OF 

of  iron  screws.  He  wondered  about  those  rocks ; 
no  one  could  tell  him  where  they  came  from  or 
why  they  were  so  strange. 

He  had  a  good  time  playing  with  his  cousins  and 
when  at  dark  the  lonely  feeling  ached  inside 
him  he  concealed  it  as  much  as  possible.  He  knew 
his  father  and  mother  were  waiting  for  him, 
unchanged;  he  would  go  back  to  them  some  day. 
At  last  the  day  came ;  the  stage  was  waiting.  He 
said  good-by  to  all  the  cousins,  he  was  kissed  by 
Aunt  Agnes,  Uncle  Laban  went  into  the  house  to 
bring  out  his  boxes.  Uncle  Laban  reappeared  in 
the  doorway,  exclaiming: 

"Bertie,  what  has  thee  in  those  boxes?  I  can 
hardly  lift  them." 

His  cherished  rocks  were  in  the  boxes.  For 
days  he  had  gone  over  the  collection,  comparing, 
selecting,  packing.  After  Aunt  Agnes  had  packed 
his  clothes  he  had  taken  them  out,  and  substituted 
more  rocks.  He  wanted  those  rocks.  They  were 
important.  Couldn't  Uncle  Laban  understand 
how  important  they  were?  He  stood  by,  help 
lessly  protesting,  while  the  boxes  were  opened, 
and  the  rocks  were  taken  out,  and  things  like 
underwear  and  jackets  were  put  in. 

"Thee  has  said  enough,  Bertie.  Thee  cannot 
carry  away  all  those  rocks.  It  is  impossible. 
Thee  can  have  ten,  no  more. ' ' 

There  were  unmanly  tears  in  his  eyes.     He  was 


HERBERT  HOOVER  39 

torn  with  indecision,  bending  over  those  treasured 
stones.  But  the  stage  was  waiting,  and  implaca 
ble  authority  would  not  allow  delay.  Blindly  he 
chose,  and  helpless,  borne  by  irresistible,  inscrut 
able  fate,  he  was  torn  from  his  accumulated 
wealth. 

"They  were  all  such  strange  rocks!"  he 
lamented,  once  more  in  the  warmth  of  his  mother's 
sympathy.  "Mother,  they  were  like  this—  '  and 
he  talked  about  them  till  sleep  overcame  him  and 
he  woke  again  in  his  familiar  bed  and  saw  the 
garden  and  the  crab-apple  tree  outside  the  win 
dow. 

The  maple-trees  were  flaming  red  in  front  of 
the  house  and  all  the  long  street  was  frisky  with 
fallen  yellow  leaves.  There  was  a  crispness  in 
the  morning  air  when  with  books  and  slates  he 
and  Tad  set  out  for  school.  He  was  in  the  first 
reader  now.  The  hours  passed  pleasantly  enough 
while  he  worked  sums  on  his  slate  or  toed  the  crack 
in  the  floor  at  spelling-time.  He  did  not  mind 
school;  he  adjusted  himself  to  it  with  equanimity. 
It  was  part  of  a  world  he  felt  himself  increasingly 
able  to  manage.  He  had  no  conflicts  with  the 
teachers  and  held  his  own  with  the  boys  at  recess. 
Sometimes,  he  knew,  he  would  go  to  the  university 
as  Uncle  John  Minthorn  and  Uncle  Penn  had  done ; 
Father  and  Mother  were  always  planning  for  that, 
and  he  must  be  diligent  in  his  studies. 


40  THE  MAKING  OF 

But  he  rushed  out  gladly  at  four  o'clock  to 
scuffle  through  the  dry  leaves  on  the  sidewalk  or 
naughtily  rattle  a  stick  along  a  picket-fence.  And 
he  liked  to  rake  the  yard  and  clear  the  dead  plants 
from  the  garden,  piling  up  the  bonfire  his  father 
would  light  after  supper  to  flame  in  the  darkness 
and  fill  the  cold  air  with  the  smell  of  burning 
leaves.  Then  snow  came,  and  there  was  coasting 
again  on  Saturday  afternoons,  and  the  prospect 
of  Christmas  rose  once  more,  after  being  forgot 
ten  so  long.  He  began  to  feel  the  passing  of  time 
in  the  slow  rotation  of  the  seasons,  like  a  rhythm 
through  the  stable  universe. 

An  unexpected  holiday  broke  the  routine  of 
school  earlier  than  the  Christmas  holidays.  His 
father  was  in  bed  with  a  severe  cold  and  Great- 
uncle  Benajah,  driving  into  town  one  Saturday, 
offered  to  take  the  boys  home  with  him. 

"It  will  save  thee  the  bother  of  looking  out  for 
them  while  Jesse  is  sick,  Huldah, ' '  he  said.  '  '  We 
can  take  them  for  a  few  days  as  well  as  not." 
So,  warmly  wrapped  and  admonished  to  be  good 
boys,  they  crowded  upon  the  wagon  seat  beside 
Uncle  Benajah,  tucked  the  buffalo-robe  snugly 
around  their  legs,  and  gaily  waved  good-by  to 
Mother. 

It  was  always  fun  to  visit  at  Uncle  Benajah 's. 
There  was  Eover,  the  eager  rabbit-hunter;  there 
was  the  pet  raccoon,  that  most  cleanly  of  animals, 


HERBERT  HOOVER  41 

who  could  not  be  coaxed  to  eat  the  smallest  morsel 
until  he  had  washed  it  in  clear  water  with  his  own 
paws,  and  there  were  the  big  barns  where  one 
could  fork  hay  down  to  the  horses,  watch  George 
milking  the  cows,  and  fill  foaming  saucers  for  the 
hungrily  waiting  cats.  In  the  woodshed  a  captive 
owl  sat  ruffling  his  gray  feathers  and  blinking, 
turning  his  head  quite  around  to  follow  the  slight 
est  movement.  Bertie  spent  hours  persistently 
circling  that  owl,  led  by  the  false  hope  that  the 
bird  would  twist  off  its  own  neck. 

Under  the  long  sheds  by  the  barn  Uncle  Ben- 
ajah  shucked  corn,  stripping  the  husks  from  the 
ears  with  an  iron  husking-peg  strapped  in  the 
palm  of  his  hand.  When  the  wheelbarrow  was 
filled  the  boys  wheeled  it  to  the  granary  and 
emptied  it  on  the  sliding  yellow  heap  of  corn. 
Then  they  carried  in  wood,  stamping  the  snow 
from  their  feet  outside  the  kitchen  door  and 
dumping  their  armfuls  into  the  big  wood-box 
beside  the  stove  where  Great-aunt  Ella  fried 
doughnuts  in  a  smoking  kettle  of  fat.  And  the 
visiting  nephews  must  spend  some  time  with 
Great-grandmother  Rebecca. 

Great-grandmother  Rebecca,  eighty  years  old, 
would  not  give  up  her  own  independent  home. 
She  lived  in  the  other  half  of  the  house,  and  when 
one  called  on  her  one  knocked  at  the  door  of  her 
sitting-room  and  waited  until  she  said,  "Come 


42  THE  MAKING  OF 

in."  The  door  opened  on  a  small,  spotlessly  clean 
room.  The  window  was  full  of  geraniums  and 
begonias  in  pots.  Great-grandmother,  in  a  white 
cap,  with  a  white  kerchief  neatly  crossed  beneath 
her  withered  chin,  sat  in  a  rocking-chair,  swaying 
gently  back  and  forth,  sewing.  Beside  the  Bible 
on  the  table  at  her  elbow  were  neat  piles  of  colored 
pieces  cut  for  patchwork ;  she  took  up  two  of  them, 
laid  them  together,  ran  her  needle  in  and  out  with 
little  quick  movements  of  her  gnarled  hands,  and 
then  spread  the  patchwork  on  her  knee  and 
pressed  out  the  seam  with  her  thumb-nail,  looking 
over  her  spectacles  at  you.  There  was  an  atmos 
phere  of  orderly  activity  and  precision  about  her. 

"Hast  thee  been  a  good  boy!"  she  asked  in  a 
brisk,  kind  voice.  It  was  rather  awesome  to  visit 
Great-grandmother,  but  one  felt  pleasant  after 
ward. 

In  the  evenings  the  boys  shelled  and  popped 
corn  in  the  big  kitchen,  while  Aunt  Ella  set  the 
sponge  for  bread  and  Uncle  Benajah,  wearing  his 
spectacles,  silently  read  a  newspaper.  Then  they 
went  yawning  up  the  chilly  stairs  to  undress 
quickly  and  climb  into  the  billowy  feather-bed. 

A  knocking  at  the  front  door  awoke  him.  The 
room  was  quite  dark.  The  knocking  was  somehow 
terrifying.  There  were  sounds  of  movements  in 
the  house,  a  door  opening,  the  scratching  of  a 
match.  Uncle  Benajah's  voice  said,  "Hello?" 


HERBERT  HOOVER  43 

"  Jesse  's  taken  very  bad.  I  Ve  come  to  get 
the  boys/' 

A  glare  of  lamplight  hurt  his  eyes,  while  he 
struggled  to  get  into  clothes  that  were  all  wrong 
and  to  fasten  buttons  that  he  could  not  find.  He 
did  not  cry.  He  was  too  much  frightened.  Tad 
got  his  arms  into  the  sleeves  of  his  coat  and 
wrapped  a  muffler  anyway  around  his  neck  and 
face. 

Then  they  were  in  a  buggy,  flying  between  a 
white  earth  and  a  starlit  sky,  behind  galloping 
horses.  But  the  sky  and  the  fields  and  the  buggy 
all  seemed  to  be  held  still  in  an  icy  terror.  For 
hours,  for  ages,  forever,  the  white  road  ran  past 
the  wheels  and  the  horses  galloped  and  time  stood 
still.  There  would  never  be  an  end  to  this. 

Then  it  ended,  and  he  was  hurrying  up  the  path 
to  a  house  whose  every  window  was  yellow  with 
light  in  the  darkness.  The  sitting-room  seemed 
crowded  with  people.  When  he  saw  Mother,  very 
white  and  not  smiling,  but  quiet  as  ever,  he  knew 
without  being  told.  His  father  was  dead.  She 
was  all  that  was  left. 

"The  Lord  giveth  and  the  Lord  taketh  away. 
Blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  Grandmother 
Minthorn  said.  And  his  mother,  with  that  still, 
white  look  on  her  face,  knew  something  he  could 
only  dimly  understand.  For  through  the  days 
that  followed  when  he  was  not  sobbing  because  he 


44  THE  MAKING  OF 

wanted  his  father  he  was  standing  aghast  in  a 
world  in  which  a  father  could  die.1 

Half  of  his  home  was  gone.  His  father  was 
gone,  gone  forever,  so  that  he  would  never  see  him 
any  more.  Under  the  maples,  where  he  had  met 
his  father  coming  from  the  store,  in  the  sitting- 
room  where  they  had  sat  together,  at  the  table 
where  Father  had  always  been  in  the  chair  next 
his,  there  was  nothing  but  emptiness.  It  was  an 
emptiness  that  was  like  a  presence;  one  felt  it 
there  all  the  time.  It  was  like  a  cold  wind,  so 
that  he  put  his  arms  around  his  mother  to  keep  it 
from  her;  he  talked  to  her  a  great  deal,  so  that 
she  mighj;  not  hear  the  silence.  But  it  was  there, 
and  he  was  terrified.  For  he  felt  now  that  noth 
ing  was  safe.  He  felt  the  precariousness  of  the 
hold  one  has  on  anything. 

This  passed,  and  there  was  solid  ground  beneath 
his  feet  again.  School  went  on  as  usual  and  he 
went  there  every  day.  He  came  home  to  the  house 
he  had  always  known,  and  it  was  home,  and 
Mother  was  there.  Mother  and  Brother  Tad  and 
May  and  he  were  together,  and  Father  looked 
down  on  them  from  heaven,  where  he  was  happy. 
It  was  not  the  same  as  having  Father  with  them, 
but  God  knew  best.  And  everything  else  went  on 
as  before,  except  that  the  store  was  sold. 

Mother  saved  the  money  for  the  children 's  edu- 

i  Jesse  Hoover  died  December  13,  1880. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  45 

cation.  She  said  this  to  Grandmother  Minthorn 
one  afternoon  in  the  sitting-room.  She  rose  sud 
denly  and  spoke  in  a  low  voice. 

"I  must  save  every  cent  of  this  money  that  I 
possibly  can,"  she  said.  "It  must  be  saved  for 
the  children's  education. " 

Grandmother  Minthorn  said  quietly:  "Thee  is 
right,  Huldah.  God  will  help  thee,  as  He  helped 
me.  Thee  will  find  a  way. ' ' 

A  little  after  that  school  ended  and  some  of  the 
boys  went  out  to  the  farms  to  pick  strawberries. 
Tad  and  he  asked  Mother  if  they  might  go,  too,  and 
she  said  yes.  So  he  began  to  earn  money. 

Early  in  the  morning  while  the  grass  was  still 
dewy  they  set  out  for  Thompson  Walker's  place 
at  the  edge  of  town.  The  strawberry  plants  grew 
in  long  rows,  with  little  vines  running  over  the 
ground  between  them.  Under  the  low  flat  leaves 
the  berries  grew  in  clusters.  You  lifted  the 
leaves  to  look  for  them,  and  the  largest  berries 
were  hardest  to  find.  Berries  must  not  be  pulled 
from  the  stems,  the  little  cap  of  green  leaf  must 
be  left  on  them.  So  the  stem  of  each  berry  must 
be  carefully  snipped  between  thumb  and  finger 
nail.  Soon  the  sun  was  very  hot  on  the  back  of 
the  neck,  and  one's  back  ached  from  bending. 
There  were  hard-shelled,  five-cornered  bugs  that 
clung  to  the  berries,  and  every  berry  they  touched 
was  said  to  turn  bitter.  A  sweet,  warm  odor  came 


46  THE  MAKING  OF 

from  the  strawberry  leaves  when  they  were  hot 
in  the  sun.  A  morning  was  a  very  long  time,  but 
the  afternoon  was  longer.  Still,  every  quart  of 
berries  picked  meant  two  cents  and  a  half. 

When  there  were  no  more  ripe  berries  in  the 
field  he  trudged  home,  tired  but  satisfied.  In  the 
morning  more  berries  would  be  ripe.  After  sup 
per  he  counted  the  money  he  had  made  that  day. 
At  the  end  of  the  season  he  had  picked  two  hun 
dred  and  twenty  quarts  of  berries  and  earned  five 
dollars  and  fifty  cents.  He  gave  this  to  his 
mother  to  pay  for  his  education. 

Then  with  a  satisfied  mind  he  began  a  summer 
of  play.  And  it  was  a  never-to-be-forgotten  sum 
mer,  for  he  lived  it  like  an  Indian.  Uncle  Ben 
jamin  Miles,  who  lived  in  a  big  house,  had  a  sub 
sidy  from  the  Government  for  an  Indian  school; 
a  dozen  Indian  girls  lived  there,  and  five  boys. 
Uncle  Benjamin  had  decided  that  Tad  and  Bertie 
should  be  playmates  of  the  three  young  Indians 
left  at  school  through  vacation. 

Bertie  was  inwardly  elated ;  here  was  new  terri 
tory  to  explore.  And,  he  had  seen  Indians  before, 
at  Uncle  Laban  's ;  this  gave  him  a  certain  author 
ity.  Thus  he  was  graduated  from  the  ranks  of 
little  boys  who  " tagged/'  He  was  old  enough 
now  to  play  with  the  big  boys  almost  as  an  equal. 
With  Tad  and  the  three  Indians  he  vanished  from 
sight  of  the  village  for  that  summer. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  47 

They  led  a  subterranean  existence  thenceforth. 
No  more  for  them  the  commonplace  ways  of  road 
and  open  field.  They  skulked  by  ditch  and  stream, 
they  stalked  the  unsuspecting  farmer  through 
leafy  corn-rows.  Wagonroads  became  the  trails 
of  enemies,  and  Bertie  learned  to  read  them  at  an 
expert  glance,  reporting  to  the  waiting  braves  that 
Great-uncle  William  Miles  had  lately  passed  that 
way,  doubtless  armed  to  the  teeth,  and  that  retreat 
was  advisable.  He  learned  how  to  build  a  fire  in 
woods  wet  from  rain,  and  how  to  trace  wild  bees 
to  their  nests,  and  what  treatment  was  best  for 
bee  stings.  He  learned  how  to  make  properly 
weighted  arrows,  and  how  to  decorate  them  in 
straw-smoke,  and  how  to  acquire  the  straw  without 
any  discussion  with  its  owner.  It  was  he  who 
marched  into  town  and  got  from  a  puzzled  butcher 
the  beef-sinews  so  indispensable  to  the  life  of  a 
savage,  and  it  was  he  who,  in  the  memorable  mas 
sacre  of  Matts  Larsen's  chickens  in  the  corn-field, 
proved  beyond  all  doubt  his  contention  that  the 
modern  sling-shot  is  superior  to  any  bow  and 
arrow. 

By  the  time  the  project  of  building  a  secret 
council-^place  had  taken  form  his  important  place 
in  a  savafge  life  was  well  recognized.  He  helped 
explore  "The  Grove,"  and  took  part  in  the  solemn 
debates  that  followed.  A  certain  dense  hazel 
thicket  was  decided  upon,  and  in  the  stillness  of  the 


48  THE  MAKING  OF 

woods,  slipping  from  tree  to  tree,  vanishing  at 
sound  of  any  step,  he  helped  gather  bark  and  cut 
down  saplings.  All  the  work  must  be  done  noise 
lessly;  no  one  must  know.  With  most  terrible 
penalties  they  bound  one  another  to  secrecy;  they 
devised  a  system  of  bird-calls  with  which  to  signal 
the  approach  of  any  one.  And  in  the  hazel  thicket, 
concealed  with  Indian  skill,  they  built  two  wind- 
and-rain-proof  wickiups,  eight  feet  by  eight, 
walled  by  trees  and  branches  and  roofed  with 
bark. 

Only  the  five  companions  knew  of  these  wick 
iups.  Not  even  Mother  was  told  about  them. 
Beneath  their  bark  roof  secret  meetings  were  held, 
and  apples  were  hidden,  and  stores  of  nuts  and 
wild  plums.  Here,  too,  Tad  and  Bertie  brought 
treasures  from  their  collection  of  curious  stones, 
gathered  on  the  railroad  embankment,  where  in 
an  emergency  stolen  apples  were  hidden  in  the 
gravel.  There  were  many  curious  stones  there- 
agates,  and  bits  that  looked  like  wood,  and  white 
hard  ones,  and  others  marked  with  veins  of  color. 

Not  even  the  Indian  boys  knew  whence  these 
strange  rocks  came,  or  why  they  were  marked  with 
star-shaped  patterns  and  stripes  and  circles.  But 
Tad,  kept  from  the  wickiups  during  one  whole 
afternoon  by  a  violent  toothache,  returned  with 
information  that  had  turned  anguish  into  excite 
ment.  Edward  Walker,  the  dentist,  had  a  collec- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  49 

tion  of  stones  in  his  office,  stones  different  from 
these  and  even  more  interesting. 

Bertie  hastened  at  once  to  the  dentist's  and 
there  saw  the  rocks.  He  carried  several  of  his 
own,  and  displayed  them.  Dr.  Walker  told  him 
that  the  pointed  ones  were  coral;  they  had  once 
been  alive,  in  the  margin  of  an  arm  of  the  sea  that 
had  covered  Iowa  eons  ago.  How  did  he  know 
there  was  a  sea?  The  stones  proved  it.  The 
others  were  petrified  wood.  What  was  "petri 
fied"?  What  made  it  happen!  How  had  the 
trees  been  there,  if  there  was  a  sea?  Then  had 
they  been  there  before  the  sea,  or  afterward?  Dr. 
Walker  knew  no  more  about  it ;  he  was  busy. 

Bertie  withdrew,  wildly  excited,  and  rushed  to 
tell  the  news.  The  stones  he  held  in  his  hand 
proved  there  had  once  been  a  sea  all  over  Iowa ! 
What  other  mysteries  they  might  reveal  no  one 
could  say.  But  those  rocks  had  become  valuable 
beyond  all  reckoning;  they  should  be  handled  rev 
erently  and— oh,  inspiration !— polished  like  those 
at  the  dentist's. 

The  wickiups  were  deserted  that  day,  while  at 
the  grindstone  Tad  and  Bertie  toiled  to  polish  the 
coral.  Their  loving  labor  made  deep  scratches  on 
the  grindstone,  but  little  more,  so  at  last  they 
abandoned  the  task  and  went  back  to  the  wickiups. 

Here  between  the  thick  stems  of  hazel  was  their 
own  domain,  where  no  one  but  themselves  could 


50  THE  MAKING  OF 

ever  come.  Here  they  feathered  their  arrows  of 
"ironwood,"  here  they  discussed  hunting  plans, 
here  they  returned  with  slain  yellowhammer  or 
wild  dove,  and  cooked  and  ate.  Here  in  sudden 
storms  they  took  refuge  and  around  a  stealthy  fire 
roasted  potatoes  and  ears  of  corn,  while  rain  mur 
mured  on  the  hazel  leaves  and  trees  sighed  in  the 
wind.  Bertie  felt  himself  indeed  a  man  then, 
able  to  cope  with  all  the  elements  and  to  lead  a 
free  life  wherever  he  might  be. 

Still,  it  was  pleasant  to  go  home  when  darkness 
came,  to  sit  at  the  supper-table  in  the  lamplight 
and  watch  his  mother  filling  the  plates  as  usual, 
all  unsuspecting  the  secrets  he  knew. 

"Did  thee  have  a -good  time  to-day,  Bertie?" 

"Yes,  Mother. » 

'  *  Does  thee  like  the  little  Indian  boys  f ' ' 

"Oh,  yes,  Mother.     I  like  them  very  much." 

"I  am  glad.  Benjamin  tells  me  they  are  good 
boys.  They  do  not  swear  nor  lie  nor  do  anything 
unkind  I" 

"No,  Mother. " 

They  never  did.  Through  and  through,  they 
were  playmates  any  boy  might  be  proud  of.  No 
one  was  so  clever  as  they  in  all  the  ways  of  the 
woods,  no  one  more  fair  in  play  or  work,  no  one 
more  clean  and  honorable  in  every  word  and  act. 

Autumn  came  too  soon,  with  its  frost  on  the 
colored  leaves,  its  sweet  wild  grapes,  and  its  threat 


HERBERT  HOOVER  51 

of  school.  Playtime  ended.  The  wickiups  were 
left  to  rot  in  the  rain  and  snow,  while  he  must  go 
back  to  books  and  slate,  and  the  Indian  boys  to 
Uncle  Benjamin's. 

He  was  in  the  third  reader  now,  and  beginning 
history.  And  he  read  in  the  history  book,  "The 
Indians  were  red  savages,  cruel  and  treacherous. " 
He  said  nothing  about  it,  for  it  was  not  his  way 
to  contradict  teachers,  but  he  did  not  believe  the 
history  book.  He  knew  about  Indians;  he  had 
learned  about  them  for  himself. 

He  would  have  liked  to  play  with  them  the  next 
summer,  but  when  the  long  winter  had  passed  they 
were  gone.  Uncle  Benjamin's  school  had  been 
moved  to  Salem,  Iowa,  and  Uncle  Benjamin  was 
going  to  Oregon,  a  vague  place  far  in  the  West. 
It  was  decided,  too,  that  he  and  Tad  and  Sister 
May  were  to  go  visiting  with  Mother.  They  were 
going  to  visit  Uncle  Merlin  Marshall  and  Uncle 
Samuel  in  Plymouth  County. 

Again  he  journeyed  by  train  and  by  stage,  very 
grown-up  now,  and  experienced  in  such  matters ; 
and  they  arrived  at  a  town  of  little  wooden  build 
ings  set  in  a  level  prairie.  Uncle  Merlin  and 
Uncle  Samuel  had  come  here  because  land  was 
cheap.  There  were  no  trees  on  the  streets,  and 
instead  of  fields  and  pastures  there  was  the  level 
plain  covered  with  wild  grass,  on  which  the  new 
small  houses  looked  lonesome.  He  felt  lonely, 


52  THE  MAKING  OF 

too,  and  liked  to  stay  near  Mother.  Tad  and  the 
older  cousins  let  him  go  fishing  with  them,  and 
they  hunted  prairie-chickens'  nests  among  the 
wild  grasses  and  flowers,  but  it  was  not  like  home. 
And  when  he  woke  in  the  night,  strangling  with 
the  frightening  choke  of  croup  in  his  throat,  he 
was  more  terrified  than  ever  before,  and  cried  for 
his  mother  like  a  baby,  instead  of  a  man  nearly 
nine  years  old. 

All  summer  long  they  visited  uncles  and  aunts 
in  Storey  County,  where  there  were  woods  full  of 
flowers  and  May-apples,  and  at  Hubbard,  Iowa, 
where  Uncle  Davis  lived.  Uncle  Davis  was  a 
large,  smiling  man,  who  let  him  ride  the  horses, 
and  showed  him  how  to  make  a  whistle  of  peeled 
willow.  There  were  many  new  rocks  there,  too, 
and  Aunt  Maria  did  not  at  all  mind  his  bringing 
them  into  the  house.  She  put  them  on  a  shelf 
that  he  could  reach  without  standing  on  a  chair. 
Here,  too,  Mother  became  interested  in  rocks,  and 
would  go  with  him  into  the  fields  to  look  for  new 
ones.  She  could  not  answer  his  questions  about 
them,  but  she  made  him  a  promise. 

"When  thee  grows  up,  thee  shall  go  to  a  uni 
versity  and  learn  all  about  rocks. " 

Did  they  tell  one  about  rocks  in  universities? 
Did  they  tell  one  about  petrified  trees  there,  and 
why  there  was  once  a  big  sea  all  over  Iowa,  and 
where  it  had  gone  f  They  did  not  tell  him  about 


HERBERT  HOOVER  53 

such  things  in  school.  He  would  like  to  go  to  a 
university.  When  could  he  go  to  a  university,  like 
Uncle  Penn? 

"As  soon  as  thee  is  old  enough,  if  thee  works 
well  in  school/'  his  mother  said,  "thee  shall  go  to 
a  university. ' ' 

He  liked  Uncle  Davis 's  house;  he  liked  Aunt 
Maria,  who  gave  him  cookies,  and  Uncle  Davis, 
who  smoked  large  black  cigars,  interesting  to 
watch.  But  he  was  glad  to  be  at  home  again. 
He  was  glad  even  to  be  going  to  school,  because  he 
came  back  every  evening  to  the  house  that  was  his 
home,  and  with  life  once  more  a  solid  thing 
beneath  his  feet  he  felt  confident  and  manly. 

It  was  only  when  Mother  went  away  to  meeting 
in  other  towns  that  he  felt  that  nine  years  was 
not  a  very  great  age,  after  all.  It  was  not  so  bad 
in  the  daytime,  but  when  night  came  he  missed 
her.  He  would  not  admit  it,  even  to  Tad,  but  he 
would  have  liked  her  to  tuck  in  the  covers  around 
him  and  say  good  night.  He  felt  rather  small  and 
lonely  at  bedtime,  without  her.  She  was  a  min 
ister  now,  and  often  she  went  away  to  speak  at 
meetings.  It  was  the  work  God  liked  her  to  do, 
and  the  Friends  wanted  her  so  much  that  they 
gave  her  money,  which  was  to  help  send  him  and 
Tad  to  a  university.  So  he  was  brave  about  it. 
But  she  always  told  him  when  she  was  coming 
back,  and  he  always  managed  to  be  playing  in 

\ 


54  THE  MAKING  OF 

front  of  the  house  when  the  buggy  came  that 
brought  her. 

So  he  felt  aggrieved  when  one  day,  while  she 
was  gone  to  Springdale  Meeting,  he  came  down 
the  street  and  saw  a  buggy  standing  under  the 
maples,  and  the  house  door  open.  But  she  had 
said  she  would  not  be  home  until  to-morrow.  He 
ran  up  the  path  and  dashed  into  the  sitting-room, 
calling,  "Mother!"  Then  his  heart  stopped,  for 
the  woman  who  lived  next  door  came  out  of  the 
bedroom  and  said,  "Hush!" 

His  mother  .was  ill.  She  had  been  struck  down 
in  meeting,  and  they  had  brought  her  home  and 
carried  her  into  the  house.  She  was  in  bed.  Dr. 
Houser  was  there,  and  the  strange  man  and  woman 
who  had  brought  her.  He  must  be  quiet. 

He  was  very  quiet  all  that  night,  while  there 
were  lights  downstairs  and  low  voices  and  the 
sound  of  feet,  and  he  was  quiet  all  the  next  day. 
The  doctor  was  still  there,  and  uncles  and  aunts 
came.  He  did  not  ask  any  questions,  for  he  was 
afraid  of  the  answers.  He  stayed  close  to  the 
bedroom  door,  except  when  he  felt  some  one  was 
looking  at  him.  Then  he  went  outside  and  shiv 
ered  in  the  cold  close  to  the  wall  beneath  the  bed 
room  window.  And  then,  in  the  second  night, 
some  one  came  and  woke  him  quickly  but  very 
gently  and  took  him  and  Tad  into  the  bedroom. 

In  the  morning  all  the  uncles  and  aunts  and 


HERBERT  HOOVER  55 

cousins  came.  The  quiet  house  was  full  of  them, 
but  it  was  empty,  for  his  mother  was  dead.  There 
was  a  terrible  emptiness  everywhere,  and  in  it  he 
was  alone,  helpless,  and  dumb  with  a  terror  he 
could  not  escape.  There  was  no  refuge  left  to 
which  he  could  run  and  be  safe.1 

iHuldah  Randall  Hoover  died  February  24,  1884. 


CHAPTER  II 

IT  was  a  bright  winter  afternoon  following  a 
night  of  falling  snow.  Lying  awake  on  a  damp 
pillow,  the  boy  had  heard  the  soft,  almost  imper 
ceptible  whisper  of  the  snowflakes  against  the 
window-pane  and  the  creaking  of  tree  branches 
bending  under  their  weight.  His  mother  was 
gone ;  he  would  never  see  her  again.  He  had  seen 
her  buried  under  the  raw  earth  in  the  snowy 
churchyard,  and  God  had  taken  her  to  heaven. 

He  did  not  wish  her  to  be  in  heaven ;  he  wished 
her  there  beside  him.  He  wished  to  see  and  touch 
her.  His  whole  being  was  one  agonized  cry  to  her 
to  come  back  to  him.  But  he  could  not  have  her. 
All  his  longing  made  no  difference.  The  inexor 
able  fact  was  there,  like  a  solid,  indifferent,  and 
topless  wall  against  which  clamor  was  futile. 

Now  the  dazzling  white  sunshine  streamed  piti 
lessly  through  the  windows  of  the  sitting-room 
where  he  stood  waiting  to  learn  what  would  be 
done  with  him.  Uncle  Allan  Hoover  was  there  in 
his  stiff  black  suit;  Aunt  Millie,  wiping  her  eyes 
with  her  handkerchief;  Step-grandmother  Han 
nah,  and  Uncle  Merlin  Marshall,  and  Great-uncle 

56 


HERBERT  HOOVER  57 

Benajah,  clearing  his  throat  with  a  rasping  sound 
before  he  spoke.  Little  Grandmother  Minthoru 
held  the  brown-eyed  baby  sister  in  her  lap,  where 
she  cuddled  very  quietly.  Beside  the  center-table 
sat  that  kindly  old  gentleman,  Laurie  Tatum,  who 
had  managed  Father's  money  for  Mother  and  had 
often  come  to  talk  to  her  about  it.  There  were 
papers  on  the  table,  and  letters;  a  letter  from 
Uncle  Laban  Miles  in  Indian  Territory,  offering  a 
home  for  one  of  the  boys,  and  a  letter  from  Uncle. 
Davis  saying  that  he  would  take  Theodore  as  his 
own  son,  teach  him  farming,  and  when  he  was 
twenty-one  give  him  a  good  wagon  and  team, 
according  to  the  custom  of  fathers  with  their  sons. 

These  matters  and  others  had  been  discussed 
and  decided  upon.  Grandmother  Minthorn 
wanted  Sister  May  and  was  to  have  her.  Theo 
dore  was  to  go  to  Uncle  Davis.  Grandmother 
Minthorn  had  asked  the  judge  to  make  Laurie 
Tatum  executor  of  the  estate.  He  would  sell  the 
house  and  take  care  of  the  money  until  the  chil 
dren  needed  it  for  their  education.  And  Bertie 
was  to  live  with  Uncle  Allan  and  Aunt  Millie. 

He  looked  at  them  across  the  sunny,  rag-car 
peted  space.  Aunt  Millie  was  kind.  But  just 
then  he  did  not  wish  to  go  to  any  woman  who  was 
not  his  mother.  Uncle  Allan  looked  gravely  at 
him  above  the  beard  he  stroked  with  long,  nervous 
fingers.  Bertie  hesitated,  went  toward  him,  and 


58  THE  MAKING  OF 

then  with  a  little  run  flung  himself  into  Uncle 
Allan's  welcoming  arms  and  sobbed  against  the 
black  coat.  He  was  ashamed,  but  he  could  not 
help  it.  This  was  the  last  time  that  he  cried  like 
a  baby,  for  now  he  was  nine  years  old,  going  on 
ten,  and  a  man  alone  in  the  world. 

That  afternoon  he  said  good-by  to  Tad  and  Sis 
ter  May.  The  home  was  gone  and  all  that  had 
made  it  was  being  scattered.  His  clothes  were 
packed,  and  the  two  mottos  his  mother  had  given 
him,  beautifully  worked  in  wool  and  framed— 
i  '  Leave  Me  Not,  Neither  Forsake  Me,  0  God  of 
My  Salvation/'  and  "I  Will  Never  Leave  nor 
Forsake  Thee." 

Laurie  Tatum,  his  good  friend  who  had  often 
given  him  pennies  and  fatherly  advice,  talked  to 
him  about  his  future  conduct.  He  must  be  kind 
and  brave  and  prudent.  He  must  help  as  much  as 
he  could  on  Uncle  Allan's  farm;  he  was  too  small 
to  help  much,  and  for  that  reason  it  was  just  that 
he  should  pay  part  of  his  board  from  the  money 
that  was  his.  Laurie  Tatum  would  manage  it  for 
him  until  he  was  old  enough  to  go  to  college;  in 
the  meantime  here  was  a  small  black  book  in  which 
Bertie  should  set  down  any  money  he  received  and 
the  purpose  for  which  it  was  spent.  "God  bless 
thee,  my  boy." 

So  he  drove  away  from  the  house  of  the  maples, 
with  Uncle  Allan  and  Aunt  Millie,  and  began  a 


HERBERT  HOOVER  59 

new  life  on  the  farm  in  Cedar  County.  Every 
thing  was  changed;  he  must  adjust  himself  to 
another  home,  to  other  playmates,  to  unaccus 
tomed  ways  and  faces.  All  that  he  had  given  his 
mother  and  could  never  give  any  one  else  he  must 
keep  locked  in  his  own  heart.  But  the  change 
was  not  without  its  excitements  and  pleasures ;  he 
played  and  ate  and  helped  with  the  chores  enthusi 
astically,  and  though  he  kept  his  own  council  about 
many  things,  no  one  else  knew  it. 

Uncle  Allan  and  Aunt  Millie  made  no  distinction 
between  him  and  their  own  son  Walter,  just  his 
age ;  they  awarded  praise  and  blame  with  impar 
tial  justice  and  affection.  He  brought  in  wood, 
pumped  water,  fed  the  horses  and  learned  to  har 
ness  them,  taught  the  young  calves  to  drink  from 
a  pail,  and  with  a  corn-planter  in  his  hand  trudged 
the  fresh-turned  furrows  in  the  spring.  Uncle 
Allan  had  tolerance  for  boys;  when  they  stopped 
too  long  at  the  end  of  a  row  to  watch  a  beetle  or 
spy  on  a  quail's  nest  his  shout  across  the  field, 
"Boys!"  was  more  a  reminder  than  a  rebuke. 

Haying-time  drew  near,  and  it  was  Bertie's 
idea  to  harness  one  of  the  calves  and  teach  it  to 
draw  a  mowing-machine.  Uncle  Allan  heard  this 
solemnly  and  made  no  objection.  So  the  boys  set 
to  work  in  the  shed  behind  the  house,  cutting  and 
sewing  old  straps  to  make  a  small  harness,  and 
when  Aunt  Millie  needed  stove-wood  she  called 


60  THE  MAKING  OF 

twice.  Before  the  harness  was  finished  Bertie  had 
evolved  another  idea.  They  would  make  a  mow 
ing-machine,  too.  Uncle  Allan  was  doubtful  about 
that,  but  Bertie  anxiously  explained  that  he  could 
make  it  with  old  boards  and  a  worn  cross-cut  saw 
that  he  had  acquired  by  barter ;  all  he  asked  were 
a  few  bolts  and  the  use  of  the  tools.  Uncle  Allan 
yielded.  "Thee  may  try  it." 

The  mowing-machine  was  a  triumph.  The 
wheels  were  borrowed  from  an  old  buggy,  the 
framework  was  neatly  sawed  and  nailed,  and  the 
steel  cutting-edges,  sharpened  by  patient  toil  with 
a  file,  actually  moved  back  and  forth  like  those  of 
the  big  machines.  Aunt  Millie  was  called  to 
admire  it;  Uncle  Allan  praised  it  highly.  The 
meadows  were  not  ready  to  be  cut,  he  said,  but  the 
boys  could  mow  the  grass  in  the  side  yard. 

So  one  morning  after  the  chores  were  done  they 
led  the  unsuspecting  calf  to  the  shed  door  and 
harnessed  him.  He  stood  stolidly  while  they  did 
it.  He  was  used  to  the  harness.  Walter  fastened 
the  traces  to  the  whiffletree  and  Bertie  took  up  the 
reins.  "Git  up!"  he  said.  The  calf  did  not 
move.  "Poke  him  a  little,  Walter.  Git  up!" 

His  feet  were  suddenly  lifted  from  the  ground. 
Bawling  aloud,  the  calf  fled.  The  mowing- 
machine  leaped  after  him,  and  Bertie,  grimly  hold 
ing  to  the  reins,  followed  in  giant  strides.  The 


HERBERT  HOOVER  61 

active  haunches  of  the  calf,  the  threat  of  the 
machine's  lurching  knives,  the  terrible  fact  that 
he  was  devastating  the  lettuce  bed,  mingled  in  one 
horrid  chaos.  He  held  tight  to  the  reins.  Aunt 
Millie  was  screaming,  '  '  Bertie !  Let  go ! "  There 
was  a  crash.  The  reins  broke.  He  sat  down  hard 
among  young  tomato-plants. 

The  bawling  calf,  tail  high  in  air,  sped  through 
the  barn-yard  and  away,  with  Walter  in  hurried 
pursuit.  The  mowing-machine  lay  a  wreck 
against  the  apple-tree  trunk.  Aunt  Millie,  weak 
with  laughter,  wiped  her  eyes  with  her  apron  and 
laughed  again.  Bertie  rose  slowly,  inspected  his 
trousers  for  rents,  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
and  looked  at  the  remnants  of  the  beautiful 
machine. 

"Well,  that  's  ended, "  he  said  equably.  What 
was  the  use  of  complaining?  The  thing  was 
done. 

"Bertie  is  like  his -father/7  Uncle  Allan  said  at 
the  dinner-table.  And  he  reminded  Aunt  Millie 
that  the  hard,  unhappy  times  of  the  Civil  War  had 
made  men  of  the  boys  of  those  days.  Jesse 
Hoover  at  sixteen  had  done  a  man's  work  in  the 
fields,  had  carried  a  man's  responsibilities,  and 
had  been  thoughtful  and  serious  beyond  his  years. 

"Bertie  misses  his  mother  more  than  he  lets 
on,"  Aunt  Millie  thought,  looking  at  the  round, 


62  THE  MAKING  OF 

cheerfully  sober  little  face.  As  much  as  she  could 
she  tried  to  fill  Huldah's  place,  and  Bertie  under 
stood  and  was  grateful. 

When  he  woke  in  the  nights,  fighting  for  breath, 
choked  with  the  croup  that  still  caught  him  by  the 
throat  in  the  darkness,  he  saw  her  with  the  lighted 
lamp  in  her  hand,  a  calico  wrapper  hastily  thrown 
over  her  nightgown,  hastening  to  his  rescue.  She 
put  onion  poultices  on  his  chest.  She  wrapped 
him  in  warmed  blankets  and  held  him  in  her  arms, 
suffering  with  him,  doing  all  she  could  to  help  him. 
In  those  long  night  hours  while  his  head  lay 
against  her  broad  shoulder  and  the  lamplight 
slowly  turned  pale  in  the  dawn  the  old  longing  for 
his  mother  was  hardest  to  bear.  But  he  must  not 
let  Aunt  Millie  know  that,  because  it  would  hurt 
her.  No  one  else  could  be  his  mother,  but  Aunt 
Millie  did  her  best,  and  he  loved  her. 

The  summer  went  by  in  its  orderly  cycle  of  farm 
work.  The  corn  had  come  up  and  was  harrowed 
and  plowed;  the  hay  ripened  for  cutting  in  the 
meadows.  In  the  early  mornings  he  harnessed 
the  horses  and  drove  the  two-horse  mowing- 
machine  to  the  fields  as  soon  as  the  dew  was  off 
the  timothy  and  clover.  He  rode  in  the  high  iron 
seat,  the  sedate  farm  horses  plodded  before  him, 
and  behind  him  the  green  hay,  dotted  with  daisies 
and  blue  corn-flowers,  fell  neatly  in  its  four-foot 
swath.  A  clean,  sweet  odor  rose  from  it.  The 


HEEBEET  HOOVER  63 

sun  grew  warmer  on  his  back.  At  the  end  of  each 
row  he  shifted  the  levers,  the  horses  turned  about, 
he  lowered  the  shining  knives  again  and  followed 
the  edge  of  standing  hay  back  across  the  meadow. 

There  was  time  to  think.  He  thought  of  the 
men  he  knew  who  were  farmers;  he  thought  of 
his  mother's  plans  for  his  education,  that  now  he 
must  carry  out.  He  debated  the  question  of 
spending  ten  cents  for  fish-hooks,  and  considered 
in  this  connection  the  price  of  shoes.  Laurie 
Tatum  gave  him  five  dollars  a  month  for  such 
expenses,  and  he  kept  his  accounts  neatly  in  the 
little  black  book. 

In  the  afternoons  when  the  sun  was  hottest  he 
stopped  the  horses  occasionally  at  the  end  of  a  row 
and  let  them  rest  in  the  shade  of  the  apple-trees  by 
the  fence.  He  drank  from  the  jug  of  water  that 
lay  covered  with  hay,  and  he  had  leisure  to  watch 
the  birds  and  to  make  a  horrible  noise  with  a 
grass-blade  held  between  the  thumbs.  But  his 
conviction  that  he  did  not  wish  to  be  a  farmer 
grew  steadily  more  firm. 

One  night  he  came  from  the  meadows  white  and 
shaking.  He  was  hardly  able  to  put  up  the  horses. 
He  staggered  blindly  to  the  house  and  told  Aunt 
Millie  that  he  did  not  want  any  supper.  His  fore 
head  was  cpld  and  damp.  Uncle  Allan  was  called 
at  once,  and  Walter  was  sent  to  hitch  up  the  buggy 
and  go  for  the  doctor  while  Aunt  Millie  put  him 


64  THE  MAKING  OF 

to  bed.  She  accused  herself  and  Uncle  Allan 
impartially  while  she  did  it. 

"We  Ve  let  him  work  too  hard  in  the  hot  sun. 
We  should  have  watched  over  him  better.  He  's 
going  to  be  sick,  and  it  is  our  fault.  What  would 
Huldah  say  if  she  knew? — There,  there,  Bertie! 
does  that  feel  better? — Has  Walter  started  yet? 
Allan,  I  shall  never  forgive  myself — " 

But  at  that  moment  the  cause  of  Bertie's  illness 
became  apparent,  and  when  the  worst  was  over 
Aunt  Millie  sat  down  and  laughed  till  she  wept, 
while  Uncle  Allan  said  sternly,  "Bertie,  did  we 
not  tell  thee  not  to  eat  those  green  apples?" 

"Yes,  Uncle  Allan, "  he  said  meekly,  suspecting 
nevertheless  that  there  was  a  smile  beneath  Uncle 
Allan's  beard.  He  waited  in  suspense,  for  he 
knew  Uncle  Allan's  conscience,  and  he  knew  that 
he  deserved  to  be  punished.  Uncle  Allan 's  strug 
gle  was  brief. 

"Then  let  this  be  a  lesson,  and  do  not  disobey 
us  again." 

"No,  Uncle  Allan." 

After  the  haying  came  the  harvesting  of  wheat 
and  oats.  Aunt  Millie  worked  for  a  week  baking 
pies,  cakes,  dozens  of  loaves  of  bread,  great  pans 
of  beans  and  rice-pudding  to  feed  the  threshers. 
The  threshing-machine  arrived,  with  three  sun 
burned,  hard-muscled  men  who  were  up  before 
dawn  and  worked  till  the  last  light  faded  from  the 


HERBEET  HOOVER  65 

sky.  All  the  neighbors  also  came  over  and  helped. 
At  dark,  the  tired  horses  came  clumping  into  the 
barn  with  a  jingling  of  harness  and  Bertie  and 
Walter  did  the  chores  by  lantern-light,  while  in 
the  kitchen  Aunt  Millie  washed  the  supper  dishes 
and  set  the  breakfast-table. 

Uncle  Allan  paid  two  cents  a  bushel  for  the 
threshing  of  .the  wheat,  and  three  cents  for  the 
oats.  He  sold  the  wheat  for  forty  cents  or  less 
and  the  oats  for  twenty-three.  'No  help  was 
needed  for  the  corn ;  Uncle  Allan  and  the  two  boys 
had  planted  it,  harrowed  it  twice,  hoed  it,  plowed 
it  four  times.  After  the  threshers  were  gone  they 
cut  some  of  the  hard  corn-stalks,  shocked  them, 
and  hauled  the  shocks  to  the  barn-yard.  There  in 
the  frosty  autumn  evenings  after  the  cows  were 
milked  they  husked  the  yellow  ears  by  lantern- 
light,  Bertie  working  with  his  own  little  husking- 
peg.  But  mostly  they  "husked  the  corn  standing 
in  the  field,  often  with  snow  on  the  ground. 
Bertie  worked  thoughtfully  at  this ;  he  was  reflect 
ing  that  corn  sold  for  fifteen  to  thirty  cents  a 
bushel. 

He  thought,  too,  about  cows.  His  enthusiasm 
for  calves  was  gone ;  they  were  boisterous,  unrea 
sonable  beasts  that  bunted  the  pails  they  should 
drink  from,  that  ran  in  every  direction  they  should 
not  when  a  boy  drove  them  every  night  from  pas 
ture,  that  were  liable  to  choke  on  apples  or 


66  THE  MAKING  OF 

cut  themselves  on  barbed  wire.  They  grew  into 
cows  that  must  be  fed  and  watered  and  milked 
twice  a  day.  Then  the  milk  must  be  strained,  and 
carried  down  cellar  and  up  again,  and  skimmed. 
When  the  butter  was  churned  and  worked  and 
s;  salted  and  carried  to  town,  it  sold  for  ten  cents  a 
pound. 

School  had  begun.  Bertie  and  Walter  walked 
the  two  miles  every  day  with  books  and  lunch-pail, 
and  at  his  desk  Bertie  stole  time  from  his  proper 
studies  to  do  a  little  figuring  of  his  own.  The 
results  confirmed  his  earlier  opinion.  Uncle 
Allan  could  be  a  farmer  if  he  liked,  but  Bertie 
would  not.  From  his  point  of  view  the  time  he 
spent  in  farming  was  worse  than  tiresome ;  it  was 
wasted. 

During  the  next  summer  a  letter  arrived  from 
Uncle  John  Minthorn,  now  in  Oregon,  offering  to 
take  Bertie.  Uncle  Allan  and  Aunt  Millie  dis 
cussed  it  with  him,  and  they  rode  to  Springdale 
to  talk  it  over  with  Laurie  Tatum.  Bertie  remem 
bered  Uncle  John  only  vaguely ;  most  of  the  uncles 
and  aunts  had  moved  away  and  gone  out  of  his 
life.  Dr.  John  had  married  Mother's  friend 
Laura  Miles,  a  sister  of  Uncle  Laban,  and  they 
had  followed  her  father,  Benjamin  Miles,  into 
missionary  work  among  the  Indians. 

One  of  the  most  brilliant  physicians  and  sur 
geons  in  the  West,  Dr.  John  had  abandoned  his 


HERBERT  HOOVER  67 

promising  career  in  its  beginning  to  give  medical 
service  to  the  Ponca  Agency  Indians;  he  had 
become  superintendent  of  Chief  Joseph's  tribe 
and  later  head  of  the  Chilocco  Indian  School; 
then  he  had  gone  to  Oregon  and  had  built  up  the 
small  Forest  Grove  Indian  School  into  a  thriving 
institution.  He  was  now  opening  a  new  school, 
the  Pacific  Academy,  for  a  small  Friends'  settle 
ment  named  Newberg,  and  Bertie  could  be  a  stu 
dent  there. 

"Millie  and  I  shall  be  sorry  to  lose  Bertie," 
Uncle  Allan  said  heavily,  "but  it  seems  our  duty 
to  let  him  go.  John  can  give  him  more  advantages 
than  we  can  here.  I  do  not  know  a  man  I  would 
go  further  to  hear  than  John  when  he  is  in  the 
mind  to  talk.  He  has  a  good  education  and  he  has 
deep  thoughts  of  his  own.  I  have  heard  him  in 
five  minutes  give  a  man  ideas  to  think  about  for 
a  week  or  more." 

Laurie  Tatum  took  off  his  spectacles  and  pol 
ished  them  with  his  black  silk  handkerchief.  They 
were  talking  in  his  parlor,  with  its  neat  chairs 
against  the  wall,  its  rows  of  heavy  books,  and  the 
shining  pink-and-white  shell  on  the  center-table. 
Bertie  sat  straight,  his  cap  in  his  hands,  and 
listened.  Laurie  Tatum  said  that  he  had  talked 
it  over  with  Grandmother  Minthorn ;  she  thought 
it  best  that  Bertie  go. 

"John  Minthorn  is  a  good  man,"  said  Laurie 


68  THE  MAKING  OF 

Tatum  in  his  slow,  kind  voice.  "He  would  give 
the  boy  a  good  Christian  home  and  many  advan 
tages.  As  thee  says,  he  has  both  learning  and 
understanding."  He  slowly  replaced  the  spec 
tacles  on  his  nose  and  looked  at  Bertie  over  the 
steel  rims.  "Bertie,  thee  is  eleven  years  old. 
What  has  thee  to  say  about  it  I " 

The  boy  answered  regretfully,  for  he  loved 
Uncle  Allan  and  Aunt  Millie  and  would  be  sorry 
to  leave  them.  But  before  him  was  the  West  with 
its  new  adventure,  and  there  was  also  the  academy, 
to  be  considered  as  a  step  away  from  the  farm  and 
toward  the  university.  ' '  I  think  I  had  better  go. ' ' 

So  it  was  decided.  Uncle  Allan  went  with  him 
while  he  bought  a  new  suit ;  Aunt  Millie  carefully 
ironed  and  mended  for  him  and  packed  the  tele 
scope  bag  that  had  been  his  mother's.  His  two 
treasured  mottos  went  into  it,  and  a  collection  of 
crooked  sticks  that  was  his  pride.  On  a  crisp  Sep 
tember  morning  they  all  drove  to  the  station.  He 
shook  Uncle  Allan 's  hand  several  times,  and  when 
they  saw  the  train  coming  down  the  track  Aunt 
Millie  hugged  him  tightly. 

"Be  a  good  boy,  Bertie. " 

"I  will,  Aunt  Millie,"  he  promised  fervently. 
Then  he  manfully  climbed  the  car  steps,  and  the 
it ain  bore  him  away  toward  the  West. 

He  traveled  with  a  neighbor  of  Uncle  Allan's, 
01  Hammel — his  name  was  Oliver,  but  he  was 


HERBERT  HOOVER  69 

called  01 — and  they  were  both  provided  with  large 
lunch-baskets.  They  rode  in  the  day-coach,  which 
was  cheaper  than  the  Pullman,  and  at  night  they 
curled  on  the  plush-covered  seats  and  slept  not 
uncomfortably.  They  waited  twelve  hours  at 
Council  Bluffs,  the  junction  point  for  all  west 
bound  trains,  and  there  he  saw  the  Missouri  River, 
a  great  body  of  yellow  water  wider  than  he  had 
imagined  a  river  could  be.  And  in  the  morning  he 
woke  to  gaze  on  an  interminable  empty  plain, 
houseless  and  fenceless,  stretching  to  the  edges  of 
the  world. 

For  five  days  and  five  nights  they  rode,  across 
parched  sage-brush  plains,  through  deep  canons 
whose  rock  walls  shut  out  the  sky,  past  monster 
mountains  crowned  with  snow,  and  through  gigan 
tic  forests  where  he  saw  the  curious  needle-leaved 
pine  and  the  feathery  cedar  and  hemlock  above 
the  blue  waters  of  the  Columbia  River.  01  Ham- 
mel  told  him  of  the  hundred-foot  masts  made  from 
those  trees,  and  of  the  huge,  red-fleshed  fish,  the 
salmon,  that  were  scooped  from  the  stream  by 
great  turning  wheels,  like  the  water-wheels  of 
mills.  They  alighted  in  Portland,  a  roaring  city 
of  fifty  thousand  people,  that  confused  him  with 
its  crowds  and  noise,  and  there  they  got  on  the 
river  boat  that  would  carry  them  to  Newberg 
where  the  railroad  did  not  go. 

01  Hammel  went  into  the  little  cabin,  but  Bertie 


70  THE  MAKING  OF 

stayed  on  deck  where  the  freight  was  piled  and 
watched  the  foam  of  the  paddle-wheel  and  the 
autumn-colored  banks  of  the  Willamette.  He  had 
never  seen  so  many  trees.  His  eagerness  for 
information  conquered  his  shyness ;  he  spoke  to  a 
fellow-traveler  in  overalls  who  lounged  at  the  rail 
chewing  tobacco,  and  was  told  their  names. 
There  stood  the  flaming  red  dogwood,  the  yellow 
maples,  the  silvery-green  spruces,  among  the  dark 
cedars  and  pines.  Beyond  them  were  the  blue 
Cascades,  and  far  away,  like  the  glory  in  the  sky 
pictured  in  the  Bible,  he  saw  in  sunlight  above  the 
clouds  the  snowy  peak  of  Mount  Hood. 

From  time  to  time  the  boat  edged  close  to  the 
bank,  its  ripples  breaking  up  the  clear  mirrored 
colors  of  the  trees.  A  deck-hand  threw  a  looped 
rope  over  a  raw-cut  stump ;  the  boat  stopped. 
Boxes  were  put  out  on  the  ground,  among  the  pine- 
needles  and  chips ;  other  packages  were  taken  on, 
receipts  for  them  were  hastily  scrawled  and  left 
in  a  box  nailed  to  a  tree;  the  boat  resumed  its 
course. 

They  passed  the  locks  at  Oregon  City,  moving 
through  the  opened  gates  that  closed  behind  them, 
rising  with  the  rising  water,  moving  again 
through  higher  gates.  There  were  people  on  the 
banks  here,  and  mills  and  factories.  Below,  the 
forest  shut  in  again. 

At  four  o'clock  they  reached  Wynooska  Land- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  71 

ing,  a  level  space  at  the  foot  of  the  wall  of  trees. 
Above  stumps  and  trampled  mud  stood  a  large 
warehouse,  whose  open  doors  showed  stacks  of 
plump  wheat-sacks.  Beyond  it  a  yellow  road 
wound  upward  over  the  bank.  Horses  were  tied 
to  the  trees,  and  there  was  a  little  group  of  men 
at  the  landing.  It  was  all  very  different  from 
anything  he  had  known.  He  stepped  bravely  out 
to  meet  it,  lugging  his  telescope  bag,  and  stood 
hesitating,  in  his  long  trousers  and  little  round 
jacket,  very  conscious  that  he  was  much  smaller 
than  he  felt. 

Then  his  hand  was  grasped  by  that  of  Uncle 
John  Minthorn  and  he  was  looking  up  into  a 
grave,  handsome  face,  at  serious  eyes  and  a  black 
mustache.  Uncle  John  accepted  him  at  his  own 
valuation,  as  a  man  and  not  as  a  child.  "Put  thy 
bag  in  the  buggy,  Bertie,  and  untie  the  horses.  I 
will  be  there  in  a  moment." 

They  drove  rapidly  up  the  yellow  road  that  fol 
lowed  the  high  bank  of  a  small  stream.  There 
were  fir  and  cedars  on  the  bank,  but  the  other  side 
of  the  road  had  been  cleared  and  burned;  it  was 
desolate  with  charred  stumps  and  blackened  earth. 
Bertie  answered  Uncle  John's  questions  about 
West  Branch  people.  Dr.  John's  horses  went 
fast ;  he  gave  an  impression  of  a  man  very  much 
hurried,  with  many  important  things  on  his  mind. 
He  did  not  smile  easily,  but  at  the  rare  times  when 


72  THE  MAKING  OF 

he  did  there  appeared  in  his  face,  for  an  instant, 
all  the  sunshine  and  warmth  that  had  been  in 
Mother's  smile. 

They  passed  a  new,  unpainted  house,  another 
nearly  built;  they  were  in  Newberg.  It  was  a 
village  much  smaller  than  West  Branch,  sur 
rounded  by  fir  and  cedar  forests,  clearings  still 
full  of  stumps,  and  mountains  on  whose  sides  were 
squares  of  yellow,  the  stubble  of  harvested  wheat- 
fields.  Uncle  John  pointed  out  the  Pacific  Acad 
emy,  fresh  in  its  first  coat  of  paint.  ' '  Education  is 
the  foundation  of  a  worthy  life,  Bertie.  No  build 
ing  will  stand  without  foundation.  First  of  all, 
seek  understanding.  Put  education  before  every 
thing  else." 

"Yes,  Uncle  John." 

There  were  two  or  three  small  cottages  built 
near  the  academy.  Uncle  John  lived  in  one  of 
them;  as  soon  as  the  girls'  dormitory  was  finished 
they  would  move  into  it.  There  was  no  room  for 
Bertie  in  the  cottage,  already  crowded  with  three 
little  girl  cousins,  but  he  could  sleep  in  a  tiny 
room  in  the  main  building.  Aunt  Laura  welcomed 
him  in  a  kind,  practical  way;  she,  too,  treated  him 
as  much  older  than  her  own  children.  Her  own 
little  boy  who  had  died  had  been  four  years 
younger  than  he. 

He  rose  at  once  to  meet  this  estimate  of  him, 
and  his  first  act,  when  he  stood  in  the  cottage  sit- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  73 

ting-room  surrounded  by  these  strange  faces,  was 
to  take  from  his  pocket  and  show  to  Uncle  John! ; 
the  little  black  book  in  which  were  set  down  every •> 
sum  of  money  he  had  received  and  the  use  toj » 
Which  he  had  put  it.    But  his   second   remark 
betrayed  him.    Beginning  to  unbuckle  the  straps 
of  the  telescope  bag,  he  thought  of  the  precious 
collection  in  it,   and  inquired,   "Are  there  any 
crooked  sticks  here?" 

He  had  made  himself  ridiculous.  Crooked 
sticks  in  Oregon,  in  those  endless  forests!  Aunt 
Laura 's  matter-of-fact  inquiries  about  his  under 
wear  and  the  state  of  his  socks,  in  the  presence  of 
the  interested  little  girl  cousins,  were  fagots  added 
to  the  heap  of  his  humiliations.  If  he  was  to  be 
met  as  a  grown-up  person,  he  should  not  be  treated 
as  a  child.  He  carried  his  collection  of  crooked 
sticks  to  the  woodpile  and  left  them  there.  He 
left  the  last  of  his  childhood  with  them,  unregret- 
ted,  and  took  up  the  life  of  a  twelve-year-old  boy 
in  Newberg. 

Newberg  was  a  pioneer  town  at  the  farthest 
western  edge  of  the  old  pioneer  America.  Its 
people  were  Friends;  hard-working,  God-fearing 
men  and  women  whose  fiber  had  been  hard  enough 
to  make  the  cutting-edge  of  civilization  against  a 
continent-wide  wilderness.  He  learned  from 
them  also  that  life  is  hard  and  earnest ;  that  duty 
is  the  guide  to  follow;  that  time  was  not  given 


74  THE  MAKING  OF 

man  to  be  spent  in  idleness ;  nor  the  days  of  youth 
in  wasteful  playing. 

He  was  expected,  of  course,  to  work  for  his 
board.  The  world  was  not  so  made  that  men 
received  anything  without  making  payment  for  it. 
His  money  must  be  saved  for  his  later  education ; 
therefore,  like  boys  who  had  no  money  and  lived 
with  their  fathers,  he  paid  with  his  labor.  Like 
them,  he  rose  early  in  the  morning  and  fed  and 
watered  the  horses,  milked  the  cow,  carried  wood 
and  water;  he  curried  the  horses,  washed  the 
buggy,  cleaned  the  stable  after  school,  and  on 
Saturdays  he  found  work  among  the  neighbors 
that  brought  him  small  sums.  This  was  a  train 
ing  designed  to  make  good  men. 

He  accepted  it  willingly  enough.  Every  one 
around  him  worked;  work  was  the  fundamental 
fact  of  life.  But  he  felt  new,  independent  impul 
ses  rising  within  him  now;  he  felt  that  he  was  a 
man,  taking  a  man's  part  in  the  world,  holding 
his  own  and  paying  his  way  in  new  surroundings 
and  among  strangers.  He  could  discipline  him 
self;  he  resented  discipline  from  without.  And 
he  was  aware  that  Uncle  John  and  Aunt  Laura 
had  taken  him  as  an  added  responsibility  in  their 
overloaded  lives;  that  they  felt  it  their  duty  to 
control  his  actions  for  his  own  good. 

He  could  not  be  sullen ;  there  was  a  well  of  sane 
cheerfulness  in  him  that  washed  away  sullenness. 


HERBEET  HOOVER  75 

But  he  became  more  silent,  and  in  his  very  silence 
there  was  an  aloofness  and  an  exasperation.  He 
knew  this,  but  he  could  not  help  it.  And  he  grew 
to  detest  horses.  He  made  no  concealment  of  this 
fact,  so  inexplicable  to  Dr.  John,  to  whom  horses 
were  the  one  passion  and  pride  left  from  his  dash 
ing  youth  in  West  Branch.  He  said  openly  that 
he  hated  horses;  he  hated  to  water  and  feed  and 
harness  them;  he  absolutely  refused  to  ride  one, 
though  he  knew  that  Dr.  John  had  expected  him  to 
take  pleasure  in  doing  so. 

He  went  his  own  way  quietly,  avoiding  opposi 
tion  as  much  as  he  could  with  honesty;  defeated 
always  in  any  clash  between  his  own  opinions  and 
Dr.  John's  sense  of  duty  toward  him.  He  was 
cheerful  among  the  boy  friends  that  he  quickly 
made ;  he  was  always  in  the  school-yard  games  at 
recess,  though  never  a  leader.  And  daily  he  be 
came  more  silent,  more  unobtrusive,  looking  with 
observant  eyes  at  the  life  around  him  and  think 
ing  it  over  without  spoken  comment. 

He  woke  in  the  mornings,  alone  in  his  tiny  bare 
room.  He  dressed,  shivering,  washed  his  face  in 
the  stinging  cold  water,  and  went  briskly  to  do  the 
chores.  Aunt  Laura  had  been  up  before  him ;  she 
had  washed  and  dressed  the  children  and  super 
vised  breakfast  for  the  girls  in  the  dormitory ;  she 
was  busy  with  a  hundred  details  of  housekeeping 
and  mothering  them  all,  and  before  her  was  a  day 


76  THE  MAKING  OF 

of  teaching  in  the  school.  Bertie  ate  a  hearty 
breakfast  in  silence,  knelt  for  morning  prayers, 
and  went  to  make  his  bed  before  schooltime. 

When  the  bell  rang  a  hundred  students  met  in 
the  assembly-room.  He  was  the  smallest  and 
youngest  among  them;  many  of  them  were  young 
men  and  women,  some  were  married  and  had  chil 
dren  of  their  own.  From  the  platform  Dr.  John 
looked  down  on  them  all ;  he  felt  a  personal  respon 
sibility  for  the  welfare  of  each  of  them. 
He  was  principal  of  the  struggling  new  academy, 
a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  concerned 
with  its  debts  and  with  raising  the  money  for 
needed  buildings;  he  was  teacher  in  the  class 
rooms,  and  he  was  the  only  physician  in  Yamhill 
County.  His  mind  was  overcrowded  with  work 
and  many  anxieties,  yet  each  morning  he  called 
the  students  together  and  tried  to  give  them  help 
and  inspiration.  He  was  a  good  speaker,  his 
voice  was  clear  and  impressive,  and  there  was 
earnest  thought  behind  his  words: 

' '  This  morning  we  will  think  about  the  life  of 
Joseph,  who  was  chosen  by  God  to  be  ruler  over 
Egypt.  God  has  a  plan  for  the  life  of  every  one. 
He  arranges  all  our  experiences  with  the  object  of 
carrying  out  that  plan,  and  that  plan  would  be  the 
one  each  of  us  would  choose  if  we  could  see  it  as  a 
whole,  as  God  sees  it.  But  we  cannot  see  our  lives 
as  a  whole,  so  we  must  take  them  on  faith. 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  77 

"God  intended  Joseph  to  be  a  ruler.  There 
fore  he  gave  him  dreams  of  ruling,  so  that  Joseph 
would  use  his  own  efforts  in  that  direction,  and 
not  waste  his  time  and  strength  in  fruitless  efforts 
in  any  other  direction.  God  intended  Joseph  to 
rule  over  Egypt,  a  nation  composed  largely  of 
slaves.  Therefore  God  let  him  be  a  slave,  in  order 
that  he  might  have  sympathy  for  slaves. 

"God  knew  that  to  be  a  ruler  it  is  necessary  to 
understand  politics.  So  he  let  Joseph  be  sold  to 
Potiphar,  in  order  that  he  might  stand  behind 
Potiphar's  chair  and  listen  to  politics  talked  by 
the  rulers,  the  'Ins,'  during  several  years.  And 
for  practice  in  ruling,  he  was  put  in  charge  of 
Potiphar's  household. 

"Then  Joseph  was  sent  to  prison,  not  to  a 
prison  for  common  criminals  but  to  one  filled  with 
the  king's  political  prisoners,  the  'Outs.'  Here 
he  learned  the  other  side  of  Egypt's  politics,  and 
learned  to  rule  over  the  'Outs,'  for  the  keeper  of 
the  prison  committed  all  things  into  his  hand. 

"When  he  graduated  out  of  this  university  for 
practical  experience,  he  went  to  the  throne,  the 
only  properly  trained  ruler  that  ever  lived.  For 
God  had  intended  him  to  be  a  ruler  and  had 
trained  him  for  ruling,  and  Joseph  had  followed 
God's  plan  with  faith  in  Him,  though  at  the  time 
he  could  not  see  God's  final  purpose.  So  we  learn 
from  the  story  of  Joseph  that  what  might  have 


78  THE  MAKING  OF 

seemed  to  be  hardships  were,  to  one  that  worked 
by  faith,  the  most  precious  privileges. " 

After  a  brief  prayer  the  students  went  to  their 
books.  The  work  was  easy  for  Bertie;  he  stood 
high  in  his  classes,  among  students  so  much  older 
than  he.  Mathematics  had  no  terrors  for  him ;  it 
fitted  the  orderly  processes  of  his  mind.  He  felt 
a  sense  of  power  in  this  conquering  of  knowledge ; 
he  was  happy  at  his  desk.  Dr.  John  said  little  in 
praise  of  his  accomplishments,  telling  him  instead 
that  pride  is  a  snare  that  traps  a  man's  feet  and 
brings  him  down  to  disaster. 

Every  evening  at  seven  o'clock  in  Dr.  John's 
house  conversation  stopped.  The  lamp  was  put 
in  the  center  of  the  table,  and  the  children  sat 
about  it  with  their  books  and  studied  until  bed 
time.  Aunt  Laura  was  busy  with  the  girl  board 
ers  or  with  lesson-papers ;  Uncle  John  was  buried 
in  academy  affairs,  or  driving  over  the  mountain 
roads  in  the  darkness  to  visit  the  sick.  At  nine 
o'clock  Bertie  rose,  said  good  night,  and  went  to 
bed. 

Sundays  were  different.  On  Sunday  morning, 
after  the  chores  and  breakfast,  he  went  to  Sabbath 
School.  He  remained  for  the  meeting  afterward. 
At  twelve  o  'clock  or  later  he  went  sedately  home 
ward  with  the  other  boys,  walking  carefully,  with 
thought  for  Sunday  shoes  and  garments.  He  was 
not  enthusiastic  about  Sabbath  School;  he  felt 


HERBERT  HOOVER  79 

that  he  could  be  a  good  boy  without  it.  The  con 
tribution  plate  was  a  vexation  to  him.  Was  it  not 
enough  to  sit  repeating  lessons  that  he  already 
knew,  without  being  asked  to  pay  for  it?  He 
gave  generously  to  missions  that  served  less  for 
tunate  boys  than  himself,  but  he  could  not  honestly 
be  a  cheerful  giver  to  Sabbath  School,  and  he 
knew  that  the  Lord  had  no  love  for  his  unwilling 
nickel.  An  escape  from  this  grudging  giv 
ing  offered  itself,  and  he  grasped  it  immedi 
ately. 

"Bertie,  I  thought  I  saw  you  put  a  quarter  in 
the  plate, "  his  best  friend  remarked  with  awe. 

"I  did." 

"But  how  can  you  afford  it?  I  can  only  give  a 
nickel. ' ' 

"Well,  you  see — Uncle  John  always  gives  me 
twice  as  much  as  I  put  in." 

At  the  dinner-table  Uncle  John  gave  him  the 
money,  which  he  added  to  his  savings  for  uni 
versity  days.  There  would  be  some  sense  in 
spending  money  to  learn  things  he  did  not  already 
know. 

After  dinner  he  must  sit  quietly  reading  the 
Bible  until  three  o  'clock.  At  that  hour  he  went  to 
the  meeting  of  the  Band  of  Hope,  the  children's 
temperance  society  to  which,  in  that  town  never 
invaded  by  a  saloon,  all  children  must  give  their 
Sunday  afternoons.  There  was  time  for  several 


80  THE  MAKING  OF 

more  chapters  of  the  Bible  before  the  cold  Sunday 
supper,  and  then  he  went  to  evening  services, 
carrying  the  lantern  that  at  ten  o'clock  lighted  his 
way  home  to  bed. 

In  this  manner  the  months  went  past,  lightened 
by  occasional  hours  of  play  and  darkened  by  the 
increasing  silent  struggle  between  his  growing 
independence  and  Dr.  John's  conscientious  disci 
pline.  During  the  summer  vacation  he  had  a 
good  job,  and  he  learned  to  swim  in  a  deep  pool 
below  the  saw-mill  where  whirring  band-saws 
sliced  the  moving  pine  logs  into  raw  lumber  that 
smelled  of  turpentine  in  the  sun.  He  saw  the 
coming  of  the  railroad  to  Newberg,  and  at  the 
blacksmith  shop  where  wheat-farmers  waited 
while  their  horses  were  shod  he  heard  the  first 
talk  of  orchards. 

Many  a  time  his  will  clashed  with  Uncle  John's, 
but  he  obeyed,  without  a  word,  resentment  blazing 
in  him.  Uncle  John  knew  well  enough  the  things 
he  did  not  like.  One  night,  after  such  an  encoun 
ter,  when  Bertie  sat  in  the  kitchen,  silent  and 
tight-lipped,  Dr.  John  said  to  his  wife: 

"  Laura,  there  is  only  one  way  to  break  a  colt 
to  lead.  Begin  when  he  is  a  suckling  and  put  a 
halter  on  him  and  let  him  run  beside  his  mother. 
Then  when  he  is  old  enough  to  break  he  remembers 
the  halter  and  there  is  no  trouble.  If  he  is  old 
enough  to  break  before  he  knows  the  halter  there 


HERBERT  HOOVER  81 

will  be  a  fight  to  get  it  on  him.  Sometimes  the 
fight  is  not  worth  the  trouble/' 

Bertie  rose  and  went  to  bed.  A  few  weeks  later 
he  made  arrangements  to  work  for  his  board  at 
Benjamin  Miles 's. 

That  stern  old  Quaker,  father  of  Uncle  Laban 
and  Aunt  Laura,  had  even  more  strict  ideas  of  the 
proper  duties  of  boys.  He  held  the  belief  that 
the  younger  generation  was  spoiling  children  by 
too  easy  discipline.  "  Satan  finds  work  for  idle 
hands/ J  he  said,  and  intending  to  guard  Bertie 
from  falling  into  idle  habits  he  set  him  to  grub 
bing  out  the  stump  of  a  ten-foot  fir  in  the  back 
yard.  It  was  a  back-breaking  task  that  filled 
every  week-day  moment  between  chores  and 
school  hours. 

He  was  glad,  now,  that  the  Seventh  Day  was  a 
day  of  rest.  And  one  September  Sunday  morning 
as  he  started  for  church  a  buggy  drove  into  the 
yard.  He  looked,  and  stood  still.  His  heart 
stood  still.  Tad! 

The  big  brother  had  come  all  the  way  from  Iowa 
to  be  with  him.  He  had  company  now  in  the  little 
corner  room  of  the  academy  building  where  they 
slept  together,  and  for  the  first  time  another  per 
son  knew  of  the  torturing  earaches  that  kept  him 
awake  at  night,  and  of  the  resentment  he  felt 
because,  paying  his  own  way  like  a  man,  he  was 
treated  as  a  child. 


82  THE  MAKING  OF 

Tad  was  openly  rebellious,  both  for  himself  and 
for  Bertie.  Tad  was  seventeen  years  old,  warm 
hearted,  headstrong.  He  did  terrible  things.  He 
went  for  long  trips  in  the  hills  instead  of  attend 
ing  Sabbath  School ;  it  was  whispered  that  he  had 
smoked;  he  threatened  to  go  to  a  country  dance. 
One  day  when  his  sense  of  justice  was  outraged 
he  started  a  fight  in  the  very  academy  yard.  He 
stood  brazenly  before  Uncle  John  and  said  that  as 
long  as  he  felt  that  he  was  doing  right  he  did  not 
care  what  other  people  thought. 

"You  ought  to  think  about  what  other  people 
think, ' '  said  Bertie,  bringing  up  a  conclusion  from 
his  storehouse  of  them.  "What  they  think  is  a 
fact,  like — like  a  buzz-saw.  You  have  to  get  along 
with  it.  You  can  do  what  you  think  is  right,  just 
the  same." 

That  was  a  memorable  winter  because  the  mill- 
pond  froze  hard  enough  for  skating.  Bertie,  late 
of  Iowa,  had  the  only  pair  of  boys '  skates  in  town. 
Of  course  he  could  not  refuse  to  lend  them.  For 
many  days  he  looked  forward  to  enjoying  those 
skates  himself,  but  there  were  so  many  boys  who 
wished  to  learn  to  skate  in  their  few  free  hours 
that  his  turn  was  long  delayed.  However,  he 
stood  on  the  bank  and  watched  the  spectacle  of 
the  other  boys'  efforts,  which  was  much  more  fun 
than  a  selfish  use  of  the  skates  would  have  been. 

His  thirteenth  year  came,  and  he  had  a  decision 


HERBERT  HOOVER  83 

to  make.  The  Pacific  Academy  was  well  estab 
lished,  and  Uncle  John  was  moving  to  Salem, 
going  into  the  land  business  with  B.  S.  Cook.  The 
third  wave  in  the  development  of  the  West  was 
rising:  first  the  forests,  then  the  wheat,  now  the 
orchards.  Bertie  could  go  to  work  in  Uncle 
John 's  office,  or  he  could  continue  in  school.  The 
choice  was  left  to  him. 

He  consulted  the  little  black  book.  There  was 
not  enough  money  to  send  him  through  college ;  he 
would  have  to  work  his  way  through.  He  was 
tired  of  chores  and  odd  jobs;  besides,  he  knew 
only  farm  work.  He  would  need  business  expe 
rience  to  pay  his  way  through  a  university.  An 
opportunity  to  learn  business  methods  had  pre 
sented  itself;  he  would  grasp  it.  "I  will  take  the 
job,  Uncle  John." 

In  Uncle  John's  rare  smile  Bertie  for  the  first 
time  had  a  glimpse  of  the  pride  his  uncle  felt  in 
him.  But  it  was  suppressed  instantly.  "Thee 
will  go  with  Tad  to  drive  the  horses  and  cow  to 
Salem,  then. ' '  Dr.  John  was  again  the  disciplina 
rian. 

In  the  hurry  of  packing,  of  leaving  the  academy 
affairs  in  order,  of  last  visits  to  the  sick,  on  the  one 
side,  in  the  nervousness  that  came  from  nights 
tormented  by  the  earache  and  from  hasty  meals  in 
a  disordered  household,  on  the  other,  the  long- 
gathering  storm  broke.  Uncle  John  was  peremp- 


84  THE  MAKING  OF 

tory ;  Bertie 's  self-control  slipped  from  his  trem 
bling  hands.  He  stood  up  and  spoke,  bitterly 
and  defiantly.  In  the  littered  yard,  among  the 
packing-cases,  while  the  startled  horses  listened, 
the  spirit  of  him  clashed  against  the  spirit,  so  like 
his,  in  Uncle  John.  In  the  red  moment  both  for 
got  the  incident,  the  last  tiny  jar,  that  had  precip 
itated  the  encounter.  Each  faced  the  other  with 
the  fury  of  righteousness  outraged;  neither  could 
retreat. 

The  memory  of  that  battle  lay  long  between 
them,  never  spoken  of,  through  the  first  days  in 
Salem.  Bertie  lived  in  Uncle  John 's  house  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  city,  in  Highland  Friends'  colony, 
a  subdivision  being  sold  by  the  new  Oregon  Land 
Company;  he  worked  in  the  company's  office, 
where  Uncle  John  was  a  partner.  They  met  a 
hundred  times  a  day,  and  their  coldness  slowly 
became  an  unexpressed  respect  for  each  other. 
For  Uncle  John  was  an  able,  far-seeing  business 
man,  and  Bertie  matched  him  with  an  equal  ability 
as  office  boy. 

Salem  was  a  city  of  eight  thousand  people,  like 
a  tree,  drawing  its  sustenance  from  the  fertile 
acres  of  wheatland  that  were  rapidly  becoming 
orchards.  Here  was  the  opportunity  of  the  Ore 
gon  Land  Company  to  help  build  the  future  of 
Salem.  Orchards!  A  hundred  families  living 
prosperously  where  ten  had  lived  before;  large 


HERBERT  HOOVER  85 

ranches  cut  into  small  farms;  small  farms  into 
town  lots;  roads  made  streets;  streets  laid  with 
rails  for  street  cars;  fortunes  pouring  into  the 
land-offices.  These  were  the  dreams  of  the  men 
who  organized  the  Oregon  Land  Company. 

In  the  background  Bertie  watched  it  all,  silent, 
observant  and  very  busy.  Grandmother  Min- 
thorn  and  May  had  come  from  Iowa  and  were 
living  in  a  cottage  beside  Dr.  John's  house. 
There  were  chores  to  be  done  for  them:  wood  to 
be  chopped,  water  to  be  carried.  He  arrived  at 
the  office  in  the  morning  while  the  long  street  was 
still  damp  with  dew  between  rows  of  locked  two- 
story  buildings.  He  opened  the  office  doors, 
swept  the  floor  and  sidewalk,  dusted  the  desks,  and 
opened  the  morning  mail.  He  glanced  through 
the  letters,  sorted  them,  and  laid  them  ready  for 
Uncle  John  and  Mr.  Cook.  Then  he  rearranged 
the  window  displays — sheaves  of  wheat,  mam 
moth  pumpkins,  red  apples,  and  jars  of  enormous 
prunes  in  alcohol.  By  this  time  the  day's  work 
was  beginning;  men  passed  the  plate-glass  win 
dows,  stores  were  opened,  the  horse-car  went  leis 
urely  down  the  street.  Mr.  Cook  came  in,  large, 
good-natured,  saying  heartily,  "Good  morning, 
Bert !  Fine  day ! ' '  Laura  Huelat,  the  pretty  fif 
teen-year-old  stenographer,  arrived  and  went  into 
her  little  glass-walled  cage.  And  Mr.  Cottle,  who 
handled  the  Eastern  advertising,  entered  hastily, 


86  THE  MAKING  OF 

saying,  "Bert!  Where  's  the—?"  Whatever  it 
was,  Bert  put  his  hand  upon  it  instantly  and 
presented  it  without  an  unnecessary  word. 

It  was  a  busy  office.  All  day  long  men  came  and 
went,  letters  arrived,  maps  were  being  made,  con 
tracts  closed,  notes  extended,  checks  sent  to  the 
bank.  The  company  advertised  in  one  thousand 
Eastern  papers;  Bert  handled  the  details  of  the 
advertising.  The  company  took  options  on  three 
thousand  acres  of  land,  planted  it,  built  roads,  set 
out  orchards  and  resold  the  small  fruit-farms; 
Bert  went  over  each  tract,  made  the  blue-prints, 
built  in  the  office  windows  a  relief-map  with  every 
hill  and  tree  in  place,  and  tiled  all  the  papers 
according  to  a  system  of  his  own.  The  company 
sent  an  exhibit  to  Chicago;  Bert  planned  the 
exhibit  and  saw  it  properly  packed. 

4 '  Bert !  A  Henry  Smith  of  Detroit  writes  he  '11 
be  in  on  the  night  train.  Where  's  our  corre 
spondence  with  him?" 

He  reached  into  his  files,  took  out  the  letters, 
and  laid  them  at  the  speaker's  elbow. 

"Bert!  How  much  was  paid  down  on  that 
McDowell  sale?" 

"Twenty-one  hundred  and  forty  dollars;  bal 
ance  at  seven  per  cent,  in  three  years. ' ' 

' '  Bert,  did  we  tell  that  Omaha  man—  Where  's 
Bert,  Miss  Huelat?" 

"Gone  to  the  bank,  Mr.  Cook." 


HERBERT  HOOVER  87 

"Oh,  fish-hooks!  Well,  I  '11  have  to  wait  till 
he  comes  back. ' ' 

When  he  was  not  answering  questions,  run 
ning  errands,  multigraphing  letters  or  seated  at 
his  high  desk  making  maps,  he  lounged  silently 
at  the  edge  of  conversation — his  hands  in  the 
pockets  of  his  gray  suit,  shoulders  hunched  a 
little,  a  small  round  hat  pulled  down  on  his  head 
—and  listened.  No  one  noticed  him  particularly ; 
no  one  explained  business  methods  to  him.  He 
did  not  mind.  Quietly,  all  the  time,  he  put  down 
rows  of  facts  in  the  orderly  note-book  of  his  mind, 
added  them,  and  filed  away  the  totals. 

The  company  was  losing  sales  to  other  land 
companies.  Drawn  by  the  Oregon  Land  Com 
pany's  advertising,  men  arrived  in  Salem  from 
the  East,  went  to  hotels,  and  were  seized  by  rival 
salesmen.  Oregon  Land  salesmen  complained 
bitterly,  but  it  had  always  been  that  way  in  the 
land  business;  the  sale  was  to  the  swiftest. 

Bert  took  a  Saturday  afternoon  and  made  a 
list  of  all  the  empty  furnished  houses  and  pleas 
ant  rooms  to  rent  in  Salem.  Then  he  presented  a 
proposition  to  his  uncle.  He  would  meet  all  trains 
with  the  buggy,  take  new-comers  out  at  once  and 
settle  them  in  places  less  public  than  hotels,  where 
the  Oregon  Land  Company's  salesmen  could 
wrestle  with  them  uninterrupted  by  rivals.  He 
wanted  the  commissions  for  renting  the  houses. 


88  THE  MAKING  OF 

He  got  them.  The  Oregon  Land  Company  got 
the  sales.  It  was  as  simple  as  that.  But  he  was 
annoyed  by  the  salesmen's  exclamations:  "It 
works  like  a  charm!  How  did  you  ever  think  of 
it,  Bert  ?  Why  did  n  't  we  think  of  it  months  ago  ? 
If  I  'd  had  that  Nebraska  crowd  to  themselves 
last  August  like  I  had  Lamson  last  week  I  'd  have 
made  a  sale  of — " 

Why  did  men  talk  so  much  and  think  so  little? 

He  considered  taking  a  business  course  at 
night-school  and  tried  it  for  a  few  weeks.  But  he 
gave  up  the  idea  because  it  cost  him  the  evening 
hours  in  the  office.  Lounging  there  between  seven 
and  nine  o'clock  at  night  under  the  flare  of  the 
gas-light,  in  the  crowd  of  men  that  came  and  went, 
or  sitting  behind  locked  doors  at  conferences  of 
the  partners,  he  learned  more  about  business  than 
he  could  from  books. 

One  night  in  the  company's  second  year  he  sat 
in  a  corner,  hands  in  pockets,  hat  pulled  down  over 
his  eyes,  and  listened  to  a  conference  with  cred 
itors.  The  company  was  solvent,  but  the  momen 
tum  of  its  expansion  had  pushed  it  to  the  edge  of 
safety.  There  were  outstanding  notes  and  op 
tions  that  must  be  extended ;  there  were  payments 
overdue  on  farms  whose  purchasers  must  be  car 
ried  by  the  company  or  the  sales  lost.  At  any  one 
of  a  dozen  points  an  unreasonable  creditor  could 
precipitate  the  company's  failure. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  89 

But  the  talk  grew  excited.  It  became  personal. 
Each  man,  trying  to  protect  himself,  afraid,  sus 
picions,  raised  his  voice  a  little  higher  than  the 
last.  Fists  were  pounded  on  the  table.  Tem 
pers  escaped  control  in  the  excitement. 

"Do  you  mean  to  insinuate  that  I  am  not  an 
honest  man?" 

"Well,  didn't  you  say  that—" 

The  lights  went  out.  Confused  by  the  sudden 
darkness,  the  antagonists  united  in  complaint 
against  the  gas  company.  Lighted  matches  held 
to  the  open  jets  flickered  and  went  out.  They 
couldn't  sit  there  talking  in  the  dark.  Why  in 
tarnation  could  n  't  a  public-service  company  give 
some  service!  Might  as  well  postpone  the  con 
ference  till  next  day.  They  groped  their  way 
around  desks  and  chairs,  got  out  into  the  street, 
and  went  home.  Uncle  John  was  about  to  lock 
the  office  door  when  a  hand  appeared  in  the  aper 
ture,  and  then  the  matter-of-fact  countenance  of 
Bert.  He  stepped  out  and  locked  the  door  with 
his  own  key. 

"Bert!    Did  thee  turn  out  the  lights?" 

"They  were  only  running  up  the  gas  bill. 
There  was  no  use  in  that  kind  of  talk,"  said  Bert, 
and  getting  on  his  bicycle  he  pedaled  homeward, 
leaving  the  company's  difficulties  to  be  amicably 
adjusted  next  day. 

The  little  horse-cars  of  the  Salem  street  railway 


90  THE  MAKING  OF 

ambled  along  its  tracks  only  at  long  intervals, 
but  the  space  between  the  rails  was  tightly  floored 
with  fir  boards  that  made  an  excellent  path  for 
bicycles.  Bert  rode  home  upon  it  through  the 
darkness,  passing  the  deserted  two-story  brick 
buildings  of  the  main  street  where  yellow  pools  of 
light  lay  under  the  occasional  arc-light,  turning 
into  the  residence  section  where  magnificent 
houses  of  white-painted  wood,  ornamented  with 
scroll-work,  turrets,  and  panes  of  colored  glass, 
stood  far  back  on  lawns  guarded  by  cast-iron  deer, 
and  then  pedaling  past  empty  weed-grown  lots 
toward  Highland  Friends'  Addition.  New  cot 
tages  were  springing  up  there,  on  lots  whose  his 
tory  of  selling  and  reselling  he  knew  in  every 
detail.  He  owned  one  himself,  taken  off  its  buy 
er's  hands  at  a  reasonable  discount  and  held  for 
resale  at  a  propitious  moment. 

He  passed  Highland  Friends7  church,  the 
nucleus  of  the  subdivision,  built  by  the  Oregon 
Land  Company  on  firm  stone  foundations  and 
standing  there  to  point  with  its  scroll-decorated 
steeple  toward  the  rewards  of  a  righteous  life. 
Every  Sunday  morning  he  went  to  meeting.  His 
membership  in  Highland  Friends'  church  was  a 
real  thing  in  his  life.  He  did  not  accept  it  without 
further  consideration,  as  a  thing  accomplished; 
he  thought  about  it.  As  he  pedaled  past  the 
building,  a  shadow  against  the  starlit  sky,  he 


HERBERT  HOOVER  91 

pondered  the  reasons  that  make  men  Christians 
and  examined  his  own  motives.  He  hoped  that 
he  was  not  a  Christian  only  because  he  wanted  to 
save  his  own  soul;  that  would  b<?  nothing  better 
than  self-interest. 

He  put  his  bicycle  in  its  place  in  Uncle  John's 
barn,  across  the  street  from  the  large  white  house 
where  he  lived.  There  were  no  lights  in  Grand 
mother  Minthorn's  cottage  of  scalloped  shingles. 
She  and  Sister  May  were  asleep.  He  closed  the 
barn  doors,  climbed  the  ladder  to  the  barn  attic, 
and  lighted  the  oil  lamp  that  stood  on  a  table 
there.  The  bookcase  he  had  made  stood  beside  it, 
filled  with  his  books.  He  chose  a  text-book  on 
geometry,  took  a  pencil  from  his  stock  of  well- 
sharpened  ones,  and  pulling  up  the  patched 
kitchen  chair  sat  down  to  work. 

On  the  sloping  shingle  roof  a  spider  swung  to 
and  fro,  laboriously  weaving  with  invisible  silken 
strands  a  web  that  would  be  ready  when  dawn 
brought  the  day's  opportunity  for  spiders.  The 
lamp  burned  with  a  soft  humming  sound  in  the 
stillness.  Bert's  mind  toiled  over  geometric  lines 
and  calculations.  The  hands  of  the  battered 
alarm-clock  moved  with  little  jerks  toward  mid 
night.  The  air  grew  colder.  He  turned  up  his 
coat  collar,  made  one  last  attempt  at  conquering 
a  stubborn  Angle  C,  gave  it  up,  and  reached  for  an 
apple  in  a  box  beside  the  table.  He  set  his  teeth 


92  THE  MAKING  OF 

into  it,  and  taking  a  sheaf  of  booklets  from  his 
coat  pocket  began  turning  them  over,  glancing  at 
them. 

He  was  sixteen.  Time  to  be  choosing  his  uni 
versity.  That  summer  Theodore  was  going  back 
to  Iowa  to  enter  Penn  College.  Bert  considered 
his  own  plans.  He  read  the  Penn  College  pros 
pectus  sent  to  Tad,  and  did  not  like  it.  The  family 
grieved  because  he  wanted  a  university  that  em 
phasized  religion  less  and  science  more.  His  re 
ligious  views  he  could  manage  for  himself ;  what  he 
wanted  from  a  university  were  facts — especially 
facts  about  mathematics,  geology,  and  mining. 
Through  the  Oregon  Land  Company's  office  there 
was  a  constant  drift  of  men  from  the  Oregon 
mountains,  men  who  were  miners  or  interested 
in  mining.  They  showed  pieces  of  petrified  wood 
from  the  petrified  forests,  agates  picked  up  on  the 
jeweled  Oregon  beaches,  bits  of  quartz,  nuggets, 
curious  rocks  that  revived  Bert 's  never-lost  inter 
est  in  the  secrets  hidden  in  stones.  Also,  mining 
engineering  paid.  His  one  meeting  with  a  suc 
cessful  mining  engineer  whe  had  passed  through 
Salem  had  impressed  him  with  that  fact.  He  had 
sent  for  literature  from  every  university  in  the 
United  States,  and  pored  over  it. 

Stanford,  the  new  university  about  to  open  its 
doors  in  California,  seemed  best  suited  to  his 
needs.  It  offered  a  good  scientific  course  and 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  93 

made  a  special  appeal  to  boys  who  must  work 
their  way.  Entrance  examinations  would  be  held 
in  Portland.  He  decided  on  Stanford.  But  could 
he  pass  the  examinations? 

"Bert  's  going  to  college  this  fall,"  said  one 
Salem  business  man  to  another. 

"Well,  the  Oregon  Land  Company  '11  miss  him. 
He  's  pretty  near  the  backbone  of  that  office,  I 
judge.  B.  S.  Cook  was  telling  me  the  other  day 
they  did  n  't  know  how  they  'd  get  along  without 
him." 

"I  hear  you  're  going  to  college,  Bert,"  Mr. 
Williams,  a  banker,  said  one  afternoon  when  Bert 
came  into  the  bank. 

"I  am,  Mr.  Williams." 

"Well,  I  wish  you  'd  try  to  get  Fred  interested 
in  going  with  you.  He  ought  to  be  going  to  col 
lege,  but  he  does  n 't  seem  to  take  much  interest 
in  it." 

"I  '11  be  glad  to  do  what  I  can,  Mr.  Williams." 

He  did  not  know  Fred  Williams  very  well. 
Fred,  the  banker's  son  who  went  to  school  and  to 
parties,  who  stood  on  the  street  corner  with  his 
own  crowd,  jingling  the  loose  money  in  his  pockets 
of  his  good  clothes,  while  Bert  toiled  over  maps 
and  blue-prints  in  the  land-office,  naturally  was 
not  one  of  his  friends.  But  the  university  was  a 
subject  with  which  to  begin  conversation;  Fred 
bored  at  the  prospect,  Bert  diplomatically  rousing 


94  THE  MAKING  OF 

enthusiasm.  And  they  went  together  to  Portland 
for  the  entrance  examinations. 

Fred  was  a  good  fellow.  He  made  friends  eas 
ily  in  the  smoking-car,  lounging  confidently  at 
ease,  well  dressed,  smoking  with  the  skill  of  long 
practice  his  good  cigarettes.  Bert  listened  to  the 
talk  and  felt  himself  very  much  out  of  it.  It  was 
a  glimpse  of  a  world  to  which  he  was  not  accus 
tomed  ;  he  was  at  a  disadvantage.  He  sat  isolated 
in  the  crowd,  unnoticed,  silently  observing.  Be 
neath  the  surface  impressions  that  he  accumu 
lated  a  substratum  of  his  mind  added  up  again 
his  own  equipment.  Three  years  in  the  academy 
had  given  him  the  equivalent  of  two  years  of 
high  school.  He  had  gone  through  two  books  of 
geometry  and  done  much  miscellaneous  reading 
by  himself.  The  land-office  had  given  him  busi 
ness  training.  He  had  about  eight  hundred  dol 
lars  in  cash.  If  only  he  could  pass  the  entrance 
examination  he  knew  he  could  get  through  the 
university  somehow. 

Fred  was  accustomed  to  traveling.  He  knew 
his  way  about  Portland  very  well  indeed.  He 
stepped  into  the  right  hotel  bus,  joked  with  the 
driver,  greeted  the  hotel  clerk  by  name,  and  went 
out  after  supper,  secure  in  his  years  of  schooling, 
leaving  Bert  feverishly  accumulating  names  and 
dates  from  a  history  book. 

Next   day  they  faced  the   examination.     Pro- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  95 

f  essor  Swain,  a  big  man  with  a  warm,  kindly  man 
ner,  was  encouraging,  but  the  questions  he  asked 
appalled  Bert.  The  boy  sat  dumbfounded  before 
a  problem  in  geometry  that  revealed  heights  of 
mathematics  he  had  never  glimpsed.  It  must  be 
solved,  but  how!  He  set  his  teeth  and  bent  over 
it;  his  mind  roused  its  every  energy  to  combat; 
his  muscles  hardened,  and  the  world  became  a 
rhomboid  bisected  laterally  by  unmanageable 
lines.  Professor  Swain's  hand  on  his  shoulder 
was  an  earthquake  shock. 

"What  seems  to  be  the  trouble?"     Two  ques 
tions,  an  answer,  and  his  ignorance  stood  revealed. 
He  had  studied  only  two  books  of  geometry ;  this  , 
was  an  original  problem  based  on  the  fourth  book. 

"Come  to  my  hotel  this  evening.  Mrs.  Swain 
and  I  should  like  to  talk  to  you." 

He  went,  and  he  was  self-possessed,  quiet,  and 
in  the  depths  of  his  mind  still  determined.  There 
were  nearly  four  months  before  the  university 
opened.  Four  months;  two  books  of  geometry. 
But  he  would  fail,  if  he  failed,  still  fighting. 
There  were  the  barn  attic  and  all  the  hours  of  the 
night.  He  said  little,  replying  courteously  to  Pro 
fessor  Swain's  questions  and  being  polite  to  Mrs. 
Swain,  a  pleasant  lady  whose  composed  manner 
and  fashionable  bangs  gave  her  an  air  of  sophisti 
cation.  "Could  I  take  the  examinations  again 
later,  Professor  Swain?  I  want  to  try  it  again." 


96  THE  MAKING  OF 

He  returned  to  Salem  that  night  and  on  the  tele 
graph  wires  above  the  train  a  message  traveled  to 
Uncle  John : 

Passing  through  Salem  to-morrow  afternoon.  Cannot 
stop.  Please  meet  train  to  discuss  your  nephew's 
entrance  Stanford. 

On  the  station  platform  in  two  hurried  moments 
Professor  Swain  gave  Uncle  John  the  verdict : 

"Bert  is  not  properly  equipped  to  enter  the  uni 
versity.  He  lacks  two  books  of  geometry,  and  he 
cannot  pass  in  English.  But  tell  him  to  make  up 
as  much  as  he  can  and  to  come  to  Stanford  in 
September.  He  is  the  kind  of  boy  the  university 
wants,  and  Stanford  will  make  concessions  to  get 
him.  He  may  have  to  enter  with  conditions  to 
make  up,  but  we  will  see  that  he  enters.  You  have 
a  nephew  to  be  proud  of,  Dr.  Minthorn." 

"Bert  is  a  good  boy,"  Uncle  John  admitted. 
"I  will  give  him  your  message,  Professor  Swain. 
I  am  indebted  to  you  for  your  courtesy  and 
interest." 

He  returned  to  the  office  and  found  Bert  filing 
letters.  "You  can  leave  that  and  go  home  and 
study,  Bertie,"  he  said.  "After  this,  take  all  the 
time  you  need  from  the  office.  Professor  Swain 
wants  you  to  make  up  two  books  of  geometry  and 
English." 

Life  became  a  series  of  geometrical  proposi- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  97 

tions.  Bert  ate,  drank,  breathed  geometry,  and 
when  sleep  overcame  him  in  the  morning  hours  he 
dreamed  geometry.  The  text-books  accompanied 
him  to  the  office,  to  the  dinner-table,  and  back  to 
the  barn  attic  after  supper. 

Fred  Williams,  too,  had  failed  to  pass  the  math 
ematics  test,  and  his  father  offered  to  take  Bert's 
Highland  Addition  lot  off  his  hands  for  the  money 
invested  in  it,  if  he  would  coach  Fred  in  geometry. 
The  money  was  a  small  addition  to  the  hoard  with 
which  he  was  going  out  into  the  world. 

He  was  seventeen,  a  man  now,  ready  to  follow 
unaided  the  tradition  of  university  education  that 
had  begun  half  a  century  earlier  when  Grand 
mother  Minthorn  was  left  a  widow,  with  Huldah  a 
little  girl  beside  her.  He  said  nothing  about  this 
to  Fred  Williams,  that  debonair  companion  who 
was  lavishly  buying  new  suits  and  striped  shirts 
in  anticipation  of  college  life,  but  he  did  not  forget 
it.  He  was  to  be  reminded  of  it  again  on  the 
August  day  when  they  left  together  for  California. 

"I  often  think  that  Huldah  would  like  to  see 
thee  now,"  Grandmother  Minthorn  said  when  he 
stooped  to  kiss  her  soft,  withered  cheek.  "Thee 
has  always  been  a  good  boy,  Bertie.  I  shall  pray 
that  thee  does  a  conscientious  work." 

"Thee  shall  have  cause  to  be  proud  of  me  some 
day,  Grandmother,"  he  promised,  with  a  smile 
whimsical  enough  to  cover  his  emotions.  It  was 


98  HERBERT  HOOVER 

not  an  emotion  that  a  grown  man  cared  to  display, 
either  to  himself  or  to  another  college  man  like 
Fred,  whom,  when  the  train  had  started,  he  fol 
lowed  into  the  new  world  of  the  smoking-car. 


CHAPTER  III 

TWO  nights  and  a  day  on  the  train.  It  was  a 
long  journey,  and  for  the  first  time  Bert 
Hoover  knew  the  sensation  of  sleeping  in  a  Pull 
man  berth,  the  pillows  quivering  beneath  his  head 
and  the  dark  forests  racing  past  the  window.  He 
ate  in  a  dining-car,  uncomfortable  with  a  menu- 
card  in  his  hand  and  a  waiter  at  his  elbow.  Fore 
tastes  of  the  strange  life  to  which  he  was  going; 
glimpses  of  the  many  little  difficulties  before  him. 
3  Canons  and  forests,  peaks  beyond  peaks  of  the 
Coast  Range  mountains,  shifted  and  wheeled 
about  the  circling,  climbing  train.  Little  brown 
stations,  lonely  between  depths  of  tree-tops  and 
heights  of  rocky  cliffs.  Mount  Shasta 's  snow- 
tipped  summit,  gaunt  against  an  orange  evening 
sky.  Night,  and  the  mirrored  windows  reflected 
the  yawning  passengers,  while  a  negro  struggled 
with  swaying  green  curtains,  making  up  the 
berths.  A  new  world;  he  was  not  yet  able  to 
move  freely  in  it,  but  he  would  be  some  day. 

Morning  on  the  level  fertile  lands  of  the  Sacra 
mento  Valley  in  California.  Interminable  yellow 
wheat-fields,  vast  expanses  on  which  the  great 

99 


100  THE  MAKING  OF 

granaries  were  small  black  dots.  A  gray  mist 
over  gray  water;  that  was  the  edge  of  Suisun 
Straits,  an  arm  of  San  Francisco  Bay.  Fisher 
men  's  huts  among  the  tules;  long  weed-tangled 
piers  that  were  fish-traps;  sea-gulls  circling 
above  them.  Then  Oakland,  a  ferry-boat  larger 
than  any  house,  the  cold  sea- wind  against  his  face, 
and  endless  miles  of  San  Francisco  Bay  with 
islands  and  tall-masted  ships;  then  the  Ferry 
Building,  and  Market  Street  opening  impressively 
before  him. 

San  Francisco  was  a  bewildering  metropolis,  a 
confusion  of  buildings  and  people  and  carriages 
and  rattling  cable-cars.  Policemen  directed  him 
and  Fred  Williams ;  with  relief,  his  manly  dignity 
not  destroyed  by  any  mistake,  he  found  himself 
on  the  train  carrying  him  away  from  it  all,  toward 
Stanford  University  at  last. 

The  train  ran  through  a  golden,  happy  country. 
Little  yellow  poppies  fluttered  thick  upon  the 
right-of-way;  beyond  them  wheat-fields  again, 
golden  in  the  August  sun,  spattered  with  the  shade 
of  low-spreading  oaks ;  and  close  at  hand,  against 
the  deep  blue  sky,  the  soft,  round,  treeless  foot 
hills  of  California,  yellow-gold  and  golden-brown 
in  the  midsummer  drought,  rolling  up  to  the  dark 
redwood-crested  mountain  wall  that  stood  between 
the  bay  and  the  ocean.  Little  towns,  gay  with 
geraniums  and  marigolds  and  palms,  went  past; 


HERBEET  HOOVEB  101 


slender  lines  of  young  eucalyptus  glittered 
green  beside  the  track,  and  silvery-blue  at  the  edge 
of  the  land  the  waters  of  San  Francisco  Bay  fol 
lowed  mile  after  mile,  refusing  to  be  left  behind. 
This  was  a  country  bewildering  in  its  beauty,  its 
softness,  its  luxuriance,  a  country  such  as  he  had 
never  imagined. 

"Menlo  Park!  All  out  for  Stanford  Univers 
ity  I"  Beside  the  track  stood  the  big  vehicle 
labeled  "University  Buss."  The  word  did  not 
trouble  Bert.  Spelling  interested  him  not  at  all. 
But  later  it  was  to  give  him  many  an  anxious  hour. 
The  driver  estimated  the  two  boys  with  a  shrewd 

eye. 

"You  fellows  going  to  Stanford?  Buildings 
ain't  finished  yet,  you  know;  you  can't  stay 
there." 

"But  we  're  going  to  Adelante  Villa." 

"All  right,  hop  in.  I  '11  take  you  's  far  's  the 
university.  '  ' 

A  dusty  road,  paralleling  the  railway  track,  led 
them  past  stubble-fields  and  vineyards.  As  they 
crossed  a  wooden  bridge  over  a  deep  dry  arroyo, 
the  driver  motioned  toward  the  left. 

"That  's  the  tree  the  ranch  is  named  for—  Palo 
Alto—  Spanish  for  tree,"  he  explained. 

The  redwood  stood  beside  the  railroad  bridge 
just  beyond  them,  towering  into  the  August  blue, 
a  noble  enough  tree,  but  not  so  splendid  in  its 


102  THE  MAKING  OF 

branches  as  the  firs  he  had  left  in  Oregon.  This 
new  country  hadn't  everything. 

Just  beyond  the  bridge  great  gates  stood  open 
—the  university  doubtless.  But  the  team  went 
by. 

"The  Stanford  residence  is  up  there/'  com 
mented  the  driver.  "The  boy  is  in  a  vault  near 
the  house,  but  the  new  mausoleum  is  about  finished 
in  them  trees  yonder. " 

To  the  left  ran  the  single  track  and  beyond  it 
stretched  the  shining  grain-fields  toward  a  hor 
izon  misty  in  the  heat.  Bert  noted  a  wooden- 
canopied  bench  beside  the  track  in  the  wilderness 
of  yellow.  "Palo  Alto.  Train  stops  on  signal," 
said  a  sign.  Just  there  the  horses  turned  sharply 
to  the  right  and  headed  up  a  long  straight  ave 
nue  through  a  grove  of  pines  and  eucalyptus. 
Novel  little  fan  palms  were  being  set  out  along  this 
avenue.  Far  ahead,  beyond  the  arboretum,  lay 
the  shining  fields  again,  and  there  Bert  could  see, 
low  upon  the  sun-scorched  plain,  the  creamy  yel 
low  walls  and  glistening  red-tiled  roofs  of  an 
arcaded  building  whose  towers  rose  bright  against 
the  curving  lines  of  misty  blue  and  green  hills. 

"That  there  's  the  university,"  said  the  driver, 
pointing  ahead  with  his  whip.  "Over  there,  to 
the  left,  that  big  building,  is  the  dormitory,  but  it 
ain't  ready.  The  white  barns,  up  there  to  the 
right,  is  the  stock-farm — finest  race-horses  in  the 


HERBERT  HOOVER  103 

world  raised  right  there;  that  's  the  governor's 
hobby.  Adelante  Villa  's  up  beyond  there.  You 
boys  going  to  stay  there,  you  say?  Nice  place,  I 
hear.  Haunted,  though.  They  say  the  woman 
that  's  buried  in  the  dooryard  spooks  round  at 
night.  Some  of  the  professors  are  staying  there 
with  their  wives.  They  're  Eastern  folks,  but 
they  're  all  right  so  far  's  I  know.  Well,  here  we 
are.  The  ride  '11  cost  you  one  dollar  apiece.  So- 
long,  boys.  Good  luck." 

The  university !  He  stood  in  a  litter  of  chipped 
sandstone  and  looked  at  it.  A  quadrangle  of  cor 
ridors,  Mission-arched,  rising  above  piles  of  lum 
ber  and  vats  of  cement.  Busy  workmen  spread 
ing  the  cement  floor  beneath  the  arches,  climbing 
ladders,  shouting  directions.  The  sound  of  ham 
mers  and  saws,  of  sand  gritting  on  shovels,  of  the 
clanging,  puffing  locomotive  that  ran  on  spur- 
tracks  laid  through  the  grain-fields.  Everywhere 
activity,  creating,  building  toward  the  future, 
hopeful,  hurrying.  No  traditions,  no  past.  Only 
to-day,  and  to-day  flung  back  in  the  race  toward 
to-morrow.  America.  Stanford ! 

He  thrust  his  hands  deep  into  his  pockets,  and 
his  jaw  set  hard.  No  obstacle  of  examination 
would  keep  him  out  of  all  this.  He  was  here,  and 
he  was  going  to  stay. 

Adelante  Villa  was  a  large  old  house  smothered 
in  dense  vines  and  damp  with  the  shade  of 


104  THE  MAKING  OF 

cypresses.  Its  lawn  was  a  tangle  of  neglected 
weeds  in  which  flowers  struggled  to  survive,  and 
the  steps  creaked  when  stepped  upon.  In  the  dim 
hall  a  bright-eyed,  flushed  young  woman  welcomed 
the  boys  with  an  ease  before  which  Bert's  awk 
wardness  was  dumb.  She  was  Miss  Pearson,  who 
was  to  coach  him  in  English  until  Stanford  opened 
and  Adelante  Villa  became  a  girl's  boarding- 
school. 

' l  Come  right  in,  boys !  So  this  is  the  Mr.  Hoo 
ver  to  whom  I  Ve  been  writing!  I  'm  glad 
to  see  you;  Professor  Swain  's  been  telling  me 
about  you.  He  and  Mrs.  Swain  are  staying  with 
us  until  their  house  is  finished.  You  '11  meet  them 
at  dinner.  This  is  your  room.  It  isn't  quite 
ready  yet;  the  blankets  haven't  come.  But  we 
are  getting  the  house  in  order  as  rapidly  as  possi-- 
ble.  You  won't  mind  a  few  discomforts  just  at 
first,  I  know." 

No,  he  did  not  mind  a  few  discomforts.  When 
she  had  left  him  in  the  high,  old-fashioned  room 
he  unpacked  his  bag,  put  books  and  paper  on  the 
rickety  marble-topped  table,  and,  choosing  the 
most  solid  chair,  sat  down  to  attack  his  geometry. 
His  first  job  was  to  pass  those  entrance  examina 
tions. 

Miss  Fletcher  coached  him  in  mathematics,  Miss 
Pearson  in  English.  He  worked  hard  at  his 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  105 

books,  but  he  learned  much  besides  in  the  intervals 
of  study.  He  helped  those  two  young,  enthusi 
astic  Eadcliffe  women  struggle  with  the  problems 
of  making  the  old  house  habitable ;  he  took  care 
of  Jim,  the  horse,  and  drove  the  two  miles  to 
Menlo  for  groceries  and  candles  and  the  mail.  In 
the  evenings  there  were  talks  with  Professor 
Swain,  that  big,  hearty,  friendly  man,  and  with 
his  wife  and  Professor  Anderson,  of  the  English 
Department, — all  from  the  East  and  all  laughing 
at  their  difficulties  and  enthusiastic  about  the  new 
university.  It  was  Mr.  Anderson's  idea  that  no 
student  should  be  graduated  from  college  without 
being  able  to  express  himself  well  in  written  Eng 
lish.  Bert  was  uneasy  about  this.  Composition 
was  so  much  harder  than  mathematics.  There 
was  a  memorable  visit  to  President  Jordan  at 
Escondite  Cottage,  east  of  the  buildings,  where 
he  felt  the  fire  and  idealism  of  the  great  man  who 
was  creating  Stanford.  Unobtrusive,  speaking 
very  little,  Bert  listened  and  watched  and  knew 
that  he  was  part  of  a  big,  democratic  undertaking. 
September.  He  passed  in  mathematics,  failed 
in  English.  He  was  not  interested  in  English, 
though  he  had  tried  to  learn  enough  to  earn  the 
necessary  credits  in  it.  But  he  could  enter  Stan 
ford,  majoring  in  mechanical  engineering,  with 
the  English  conditions  to  work  off  later.  So  that 


106  THE  MAKING  OF 

was  all  right.  Because  Laurie  Tatum,  his  guard 
ian,  lived  there,  he  registered  from  Springdale, 
Iowa. 

He  moved  from  Adelante  Villa  to  Encina  Hall, 
on  the  campus.  The  huge  empty  building  echoed 
the  sound  of  his  feet  on  the  corridor  floors,  still 
sticky  with  varnish.  He  was  the  first  college  man 
to  sleep  there,  lighting  his  way  to  a  shivery  bed 
with  a  candle,  for  the  lights  were  not  yet  in  and 
the  red  blankets  woven  from  the  wool  of  Senator 
Stanford's  own  sheep  were  still  in  the  crates. 
In  the  mornings  he  was  awakened  by  the  clanging 
triangle,  calling  the  workmen  from  their  blankets 
in  the  bunk-house  to  the  last  feverish  labor  of 
finishing  the  university  buildings. 

Arch  upon  arch  the  long  corridors  stretched 
beneath  their  red-tiled  roofs.  The  curving 
shadows  made  a  pattern  on  the  sunny  pavements. 
Opening,  closing,  opening  again  beside  him  as  he 
walked,  the  archways  disclosed  beyond  the  low 
green  of  the  vineyard  and  the  gold  of  stubble  the 
gracious  lines  of  the  hills  against  the  sapphire 
and  pearl  of  the  California  sky.  Out  by  the  white 
barns  of  the  stock-farm  eucalyptus  trees  shook 
silvery  leaves  in  the  morning  sunlight,  and  the  red 
wheels  of  Senator  Stanford's  buggy  made  a  spot 
of  color  as  he  drove  on  his  morning  round  of 
inspection.  It  was  very  good  to  be  alive  on  those 
mornings ;  very  good  to  be  alive  and  in  Stanford. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  107 

Bert  had  a  job  in  the  registrar's  office  now  and 
already  students  were  coming  to  register.  Well- 
dressed,  care-free,  debonair  young  men  with 
fathers  in  tow,  they  stopped  at  his  desk  and  looked 
at  him  in  surprise.  "I  didn't  come  here  to  talk 
to  you!" 

He  saw  himself  in  their  eyes,  a  country  boy  with 
a  bad  complexion,  in  a  cheap  ready-made  suit. 

"I  'm  here  to  register  you,  and  I  'm  going  to 
do  it.  Name,  please?"  They  registered.  At 
any  rate,  he  did  not  care  for  their  opinion  of  him. 
He  knew  his  own  handicaps  and  his  own  abilities. 
He  knew  what  he  wanted  and  that  he  would  get 
it.  This  concealed  hardihood  of  purpose  he 
shared  with  other  students  who  registered— men 
six,  eight,  nine  years  older  than  he,  who,  like  him, 
had  worked  hard  for  the  privilege  of  studying  at 
Stanford.  He  understood  these  men  and  they 
understood  him.  He  would  have  friends  enough. 

There  was  a  growing  stir  of  life  in  the  rawly 
new  buildings.  Workmen  took  down  the  last  scaf 
folding,  removed  the  guarding  planks  from  the 
dry  cement  pavements,  spread  the  last  bit 
of  asphalt  in  the  great  three-acre  quadrangle. 
Carpenters  finished  woodwork  and  hung  doors,  in 
an  odor  of  fresh  varnish  and  newly  cut  wood. 
The  professors'  families  were  moving  into  the  row 
of  houses  that  rose  gaunt  from  the  cracked  adobe 
across  the  field  from  the  big  dormitory.  Ten 


108  THE  MAKING  OF 

houses  there  were  and  some  one  called  The  Bow 
the  "  Decalogue. "  More  students  were  finding 
quarters  in  Enema;  a  piano  was  installed,  tables 
and  chairs  appeared  in  the  dining-room.  Strange 
faces  multiplied.  In  the  office  he  knew  the  fac 
ulty's  perplexities :  one  hundred  students  had  been 
expected ;  four  hundred  had  come. 

On  the  eve  of  the  great  day  when  Stanford  was 
to  open  the  vast  lobby  of  Encina  was  a  blur  of 
people.  Three  hundred  young  college  men,  try 
ing  their  newly  fledged  wings  of  independence 
with  timid  bravado,  thronged  the  great  staircase 
and  eddied  in  the  swirling  crowd  below.  Three 
hundred  strange  faces — laughing,  serious,  beetle- 
browed,  sunnily  good-humored,  many  of  them 
"bearded  like  the  prof," — bare  heads,  gray- 
capped  heads,  heads  wearing  derby  hats ;  suits  of 
all  sizes,  styles,  and  colors,  mixed  and  mingled 
before  his  gaze  with  a  pandemonium  of  sound; 
high,  nervous  voices,  gruff,  low-toned  greetings, 
scraps  of  talk— '  <  Hello,  there,  White  Plains !" 
"Hello,  yourself,  Sacramento!"  " — not  so  bad. 
Dad  '11  send  me  the  furniture  I — "  " — getting  a 
hundred  a  month  from  home.  He  's  the  son  of— 
Beneath -it  all  a  ceaseless  shuffle  of  feet,  and  from 
the  piano  in  the  second-floor  alcove  a  crashing  of 
chords,  loud  pedal  down,  and  tenor  and  bass 
voices,  sounding  down  the  great  stair-well : 


HEEBERT  HOOVER  109 

"  There  is  a  tavern  in  the  town,  in  the  town, 
And  there  my  true  love  sits  him  down — ' 

"But,  fellows,  we  Ve  got  to  get  up  a  yell  for 
to-morrow !  How  's  this—  Ye  Gods !  Listen  a 
minute,  can't  you?"  Megaphoned  voice  between 
cupped  hands:  "Hey,  fellows!  Listen  to  this  for 
a  yell !  All  together — now ! 

"Wah   hoo!     Wah   hoo! 
L!     S!     J!     U! 
STANFORD!" 

A  new  world,  strange,  novel,  bewildering.  He 
stood  silent,  hands  in  his  pockets,  close  to  the  cor 
ridor  wall,  like  a  stout  little  island  in  the  wash  of 
breakers.  He  looked  at  it  all,  an  outsider,  very 
much  alone,  unshaken  but  isolated.  He  had  never 
sung  with  a  bunch  of  fellows  nor  heard  a  piano 
played  like  that  nor  slapped  a  man  familiarly  on 
the  shoulder ;  it  was  not  in  him  to  stand  up  before 
a  crowd  and  yell  through  cupped  hands  at  it,  com 
pelling  it  to  listen.  He  was  a  world  in  himself, 
rounded  and  self-centered,  but  the  penalty  for 
such  completeness  was  the  ache  of  loneliness  that 
he  doggedly  concealed. 

Then  out  of  the  whirl  of  strangeness  suddenly 
came  a  face  that  he  recognized,  and  a  heavy,  low 
voice  that  hailed  him.  "Hello,  there,  Bert 
Hoover!" 


110  THE  MAKING  OF 

"Hello!"  he  responded.  It  was  Henry  Pierce, 
son  of  the  richest  wheat-grower  in  Yamhill 
County,  Oregon.  They  had  not  known  each  other 
in  Salem,  but  the  high-school  boy  had  often  noted 
the  real-estate  boy  on  his  speeding  bicycle.  The 
gulf  between  their  far-separated  lives  was  bridged 
now ;  they  were  both  sons  of  Stanford. 

"Glad  to  see  you  down  here,  Bert.  Looks  like 
things  '11  happen,  huh?" 

"Yes." 

' '  See  you  to-morrow,  old  man ;  folks  waiting  for 
me.  Come  around  to  seventy-five  if  you  can." 

"Thanks.    I  will." 

Ten  o'clock.  He  joined  the  line  waiting  for 
candles  at  Mr.  Fesler's  office,  and  went  soberly  to 
bed.  To-morrow  work  would  begin.  Twenty 
dollars  a  month  for  board  and  lodging !  He  would 
have  to  make  money.  Couldn't  use  up  all  his 
principal;  he  'd  need  some  money  when  he  grad 
uated.  At  least  he  must  be  sure  of  his  four 
years.  Surely  the  professors  would  have  odd 
jobs  that  would  help  out.  He  wouldn't  wait  on 
table :  that  was  for  fellows  who  had  not  had  busi 
ness  experience.  Well,  it  was  great  to  think  of  all 
there  was  ahead  of  him.  Conditions  to  work  off 
—bother  English,  anyhow!  Good  fellow,  Henry 
Pierce ;  worth  while  knowing  him. 

He  blew  out  the  candle.  Night  came  softly  in 
at  the  window  of  Room  38.  Stars,  and  flat  wide 


HERBERT  HOOVER  111 

fields,  and  a  dark  clump  of  oaks.  The  big  build 
ing  was  all  astir  around  him,  like  a  great  hotel. 
Many  feet  went  along  the  porch  past  his  window 
and  down  the  uncarpeted  hallways,  doors 
slammed,  voices  answered  voices.  Faintly  from 
an  upstairs  corridor  a  long  way  off  came  the  full- 
throated  yell, 

"Wall  hoo!     Wah  hoo!" 

It  was  as  though  an  owl  had  barked.  With  a 
contented  grin,  Hoover,  Stanford  '95,  rolled  over 
in  the  darkness  and  slept. 

Meadow-larks  singing  in  the  grain-fields  awoke 
him  to  the  opening  day.  He  washed  gingerly  in 
water  dark  brown  in  color  and  smell,  for  some 
thing  was  still  wrong  with  the  water-supply. 
Breakfast  eaten,  he  wandered,  curious,  over  to 
the  Quad.  The  sun  was  now  warm  in  a  cloudless 
sky.  From  the  asphalt  pavement  of  the  vast  en 
closure  a  tarry  odor  rose  to  mingle  with  the  smell 
of  varnish  and  tar-weed  in  the  fresh  air  of  that 
October  morning.  At  the  west  entrance  decor 
ators  from  the  city  were  putting  the  finishing 
touches  to  the  speaker's  stand.  Palms  and  bam 
boo  filled  the  closed  archway  and  masked  the  lum 
ber  ;  wagon-loads  of  grape-vines  heavy  with  clus 
tered  fruit,  purple,  green,  hung  from  the  rails. 
From  under  the  keystone  of  the  great  arch  a  paint 
ing  of  young  Stanford  looked  down  upon  these 


112  THE  MAKING  OF 

activities  in  his  memory.  Bert  thought  of  the 
great  museum  building,  now  ready  to  house  won 
derful  collections,  the  nucleus  of  which  were 
things  that  this  youngster  had  gathered.  He 
remembered  certain  childish  collections  in  Iowa, 
and  shrugged  his  shoulders.  Workmen  in  over 
alls  were  setting  out  hundreds  of  camp  chairs. 
The  professors  hastened  up  and  down  The  Kow  in 
their  shirt-sleeves,  carrying  pails  of  water  from 
the  one  tank  that  supplied  all  their  houses.  The 
atmosphere  was  alert  with  expectancy. 

By  half-past  nine  wagons  and  carriages  were 
driving  into  the  quadrangle.  At  ten,  special 
trains  from  San  Francisco  ran  in  on  the  freight 
tracks  and  discharged  their  crowds  in  front  of  the 
main  entrance.  At  half -past  ten,  every  seat  was 
filled ;  a  solid  acre  of  people  waited  in  the  hot  sun 
shine,  many  hundreds  more  walked  up  and  down 
under  the  arches.  Camera  men  from  the  city 
newspapers  were  erecting  tall  tripods  or  climbing 
to  vantage-points  on  the  roofs.  The  professors 
appeared,  serene  and  composed,  their  shirt-sleeves 
hidden  by  immaculate  coats.  Great  and  powerful 
men  were  on  that  platform,  men  who  had  come  to 
do  honor  to  the  new  university,  to  its  pioneer 
class, — yes,  to  do  honor  to  him,  Bert  Hoover,  mem 
ber  of  that  class ! 

He  found  a  seat  among  those  reserved  for  stu 
dents,  a  hard  seat  in  the  broiling  sun,  so  far  from 


HERBERT  HOOVER  113 

the  stage  that  he  could  not  hear  clearly  what  was 
said.  For  an  hour  he  sat  there,  without  moving, 
watching  those  men  rise,  and  speak,  and  sit  down 
again.  He  saw  President  Jordan,  young,  keen, 
even-voiced,  talking  beneath  the  shade  of  an 
umbrella  held  by  Professor  Swain.  Both  men 
were  tall  and  impressive.  Already  he  felt  that 
both  were  his  friends.  The  big  professor  then 
held  the  umbrella  over  little  Dr.  Martin  Kellogg, 
president  of  the  University  of  California,  at  Berk 
eley.  Of  course  Berkeley  was  their  rival.  Bert 
grinned  at  the  sight,  but  not  for  long.  Senator 
Stanford  rose,  with  Mrs.  Stanford  beside  him. 

Senator  Stanford !— the  man  who  had  made  pos 
sible  this  university,  the  man  who  was  giving  this 
great  opportunity  to  four  hundred  boys  and  girls. 
Senator  Stanford  himself  had  once  been  poor; 
by  his  own  efforts  he  had  made  himself  a  multi 
millionaire.  He  had  built  a  railroad  that  made 
the  Pacific  Coast  part  of  America;  millions  had 
been  poured  into  his  hands.  Now,  with  his  only 
son  no  longer  living  to  be  blessed  with  this  wealth, 
he  was  pouring  it  out  to  the  world.  'The  chil 
dren  of  California  shall  be  our  children." 

Somehow  Senator  Stanford  and  his  wife,  stand 
ing  there  in  memory  of  the  dead  boy,  to  give  all 
that  might  have  been  his  to  other  less  fortunate 
children,  became  linked  up  with  Bert  Hoover's 
own  life,  with  his  own  ambitions.  Hard  work, 


114  THE  MAKING  OF 

thrift,  accomplishment — and  service.  This  was 
the  pioneer  heritage,  the  American  spirit.  Get 
much  in  order  to  give  greatly.  In  this  lavishly 
rich  world  the  strong  individual,  industrious, 
hard-willed,  deserved  and  won  great  wealth  and 
gave  it  back  in  ways  that  served  all  humanity. 
This  was  the  real  success.  Before  him  on  the 
palm-walled  platform,  beneath  the  sandstone 
arches  and  the  red-tiled  roofs  softly  glowing 
against  the  bright  blue  sky,  Senator  Stanford 
stood  as  the  living  embodiment  of  a  noble,  suc 
cessful  life.  Work,  success,  service, — the  Amer 
ican  spirit,  the  spirit  of  Stanford ! 

Some  words  that  Dr.  Jordan  had  said  that  day 
rushed  back  into  his  mind.  "Theirs  is  the  power 
to  live  after  death,  working  and  shaping  benefi 
cently  in  the  minds  of  many,  keeping  their  hands 
mightily  on  human  affairs  after  the  flesh  has  been 
dust  for  years. "  Yes,  death  did  not  end  service; 
if  you  accomplished  enough  in  life  you  could  send 
its  effects  on  after  you,  as  this  man  was  doing. 
Suddenly  he  thought  of  his  father,  stopped  so 
early  in  his  work,  yet  leaving  that  little  fund  from 
the  business  and  the  insurance,  which  his  mother 
had  striven  so  hard  to  save  for  his  education  and 
a  good  part  of  which  Laurie  Tatum  still  held  for 
him.  In  their  own  small  way  they  too  had  had 
that  power ;  they  were  living  after  death  with  him 
as  he  sat  there  in  the  glowing  Quad  with  his  big 


HERBERT  HOOVER  115 

chance  before  him,  his  own  efforts  to  be  joined 
by  theirs.  No,  it  was  not  alone  the  Stanfords  who 
were  helping  him  to  his  training  for  a  successful 
life.  Upon  his  small  affairs  was  the  touch  of 
hands  that  had  been  dust  for  years. 

As  the  quick  tears,  which  bothered  him  some 
times,  came  to  his  eyes,  the  students  surged  to 
their  feet  and  together  with  one  voice,  they  woke 
the  echoes  of  the  arched  corridors : 

"Wah  hoo!     Wah  hoo! 
L!     S!     J!     U! 
STANFORD!" 

The  last  sharp  sound  of  the  repeated  yell  smote 
the  air.  The  crowd  rose,  moved  slowly,  eddied 
into  groups.  Bert  Hoover,  making  for  the  shade 
of  the  corridor,  ran  into  Henry  Pierce  and  Sam 
Collins.  They  hailed  him  joyously : 

"Come  on,  Hoover!  now  for  the  grub!" 

They  broke  into  a  trot,  headed  for  the  clamor 
ing  bunch  at  Encina.  "Grub!"  they  shouted  to 
others  as  they  ran.  But  their  hearts  were  high 
and  free.  They  were  full-fledged  college  men. 
Stanford  belonged  to  them !  And  they  to  it. 

Out  of  the  many-colored  current  of  college  life 
he  took  what  he  wanted.  Mathematics,  with  his 
friend  Professor  Swain ;  he  liked  both  of  them  and 
he  registered  in  three  classes  of  Math.  Wood 
working  in  the  airy  brick  shop  building  back  of  the 


116  THE  MAKING  OF 

Quad,  with  Buchanan,  the  foreman.  And  linear 
and  free-hand  drawing,  because  Professor  Gale 
required  these  of  his  students  in  mechanical  engi 
neering.  As  yet  there  was  no  geology,  but  the 
register  said  that  Dr.  John  Casper  Branner,  State 
Geologist  of  Arkansas,  was  coming  the  following 
semester,  just  after  New  Year's.  Bert  had  set 
his  heart  on  geology.  When  Dr.  Branner  should 
arrive  he  would  be  in  his  first  class,  if  that  were 
possible. 

Meanwhile  in  the  lobby  of  Encina,  under  the 
arches  of  the  moonlit  Quad,  up  in  the  fellows' 
rooms  after  dinner,  he  watched  the  formless  mass 
of  Stanford  students  slowly  becoming  an  organ 
ization.  He  saw  a  bit  of  society  in  the  process  of 
making  itself. 

Groups  formed  slowly.  The  very  nature  of 
Stanford,  being  pioneering,  was  democratic. 
Freshmen  and  professors  labored  together,  with 
inadequate  materials  and  high  hopes,  to  build  a 
new  university.  Many  of  the  profs  roomed  in  the 
hall.  There  had  not  yet  come  the  leisure  and 
plenty  that  develop  class  distinctions;  the  atmos 
phere  was  one  of  immediate,  practical  effort. 
Pragmatic.  The  new  word,  expressing  the  one 
contribution  to  philosophy  that  blossomed  from 
the  hard  experience  of  the  American  pioneer,  ex 
pressed  also  the  spirit  of  Stanford  and  the  phil 
osophy  of  Bert  Hoover.  Truth  and  right  were 


HERBERT  HOOVER  117 

not  abstractions ;  they  were  qualities  of  the  prac 
tical  thing,  the  thing  that  " worked. "  Theories, 
ideals,  plans,  machines  were  submitted  to  the  same 
test.  Were  they  of  immediate  practical  service? 
If  they  were,  they  were  right.  Hard  work  was 
right;  thrift  was  right;  individual  freedom,  indi 
vidual  initiative  were  right. 

Still,  though  slowly,  the  groups  formed.  The 
beginnings  of  the  glee-club  were  there,  in  the 
bunch  of  fellows  who  hung  around  the  piano,  and 
strummed  banjos  and  mandolins  in  the  moonlit 
corridors  of  the  Quad.  There  was  the  athletic 
crowd,  already  kicking  and  batting  balls  around 
in  the  grain-fields  in  front  of  the  scaffolding  of 
the  new  gymnasium,  and  wondering  if  there  would 
be  contests  with  the  quarter-century-old  college 
across  the  bay.  The  "angels"  of  Roble  dormi 
tory  were  exerting  a  social  influence.  Already 
the  fellows  in  Encina  had  proposed  an  evening 
party  and  sent  an  invitation  to  Roble.  But  the 
girls,  learning  that  the  boys  were  practising  with 
piano  and  violin  in  anticipation  of  dancing,  felt 
that  such  festivity  would  not  be  in  accord  with  the 
Stanford  spirit. 

"It  will  get  into  the  papers,  and  people  will 
think  we  >re  in  a  hurry  for  such  things, "  the 
"angels"  decided,  and  sent  a  note  declining 
Encina  Hall's  invitation.  Whereupon,  after  an 
indignation  meeting,  the  boys  retorted  with  a  curt 


118  THE  MAKING  OF 

notification  that  owing  to  circumstances  over 
which  they  had  no  control  the  invitation  was  with 
drawn. 

All  these  things  Bert  Hoover  observed,  loung 
ing  about  the  halls,  silent  and  unobtrusive  as  ever, 
hands  in  pockets  and  shoulders  hunched  a  little. 
In  the  afternoons  before  dinner  he  drifted  into 
the  Den  of  Iniquity,  Room  20,  where  sounds  of 
howling  mirth  or  crashing  furniture  testified  that 
the  fellows  were  raising  Cain  as  usual.  He 
walked  in  quietly,  settled  into  a  comfortable  chair, 
and  picked  up  one  of  Nat  Ellery  's  Eastern  papers. 
No  matter  how  the  noise  surged  about  him,  he 
could  read  without  hearing  it. 

' ' Come  out  of  it,  you  darned  dig!"  said  Bud 
Frankenfield,  punching  him  affectionately. 
"You  '11  dry  up  and  blow  away." 

"Well,  you  do  the  blowing  all  right,  Bud,"  he 
replied,  "but  I  guess  you  '11  never  dry  up."  And 
he  grinned  while  the  others  yelled.  Then  he  sat 
cheerfully  absorbing  the  New  York  and  European 
news,  with  one  ear  open  to  the  arguments  around 
him. 

"I  tell  you  it  is  n't  right,  fellows.  We  ought  to 
kick  about  it.  Look  at  the  hot-cakes — seventeen 
deep  in  a  tin  dish.  The  bottom  ones — a  hog  'd 
turn  up  his  nose  to  look  at  'em.  And  that  tomb 
stone  pudding  four  times  a  week.  Makes  me 
sick!"  Zion,  gesticulating  from  his  seat  on  the 


HERBERT  HOOVER  119 

table-corner,  spoke  with  passion.  "I  say,  let  's 
do  something  about  it !  We  're  paying,  are  n't  we, 
for—" 

Nat  Ellery,  slim,  quick  and  high-strung,  struck 
in: 

' '  Oh,  shut  up,  Zion !  Where  's  your  gratitude  f 
Did  you  ever  get  beans  cooked  as  many  ways 
before?  Hey!  there  's  the  gong!"  Pell-mell, 
they  tumbled  out  of  the  Den  of  Iniquity  and  were 
swallowed  in  the  clamor  of  the  dining-room.  The 
food  was  poorly  cooked  and  badly  served,  but  Bert 
ate  very  little,  anyway.  Seldom  speaking,  he 
broke  into  a  low  chuckle  now  and  then  at  the 
repartee  that  flew  across  the  table.  But  when 
the  uncertain  lights  failed  suddenly  and  baked 
potatoes  began  to  fly,  he  dodged  them  equably 
and  took  no  part  in  the  rough-house.  What  was 
the  sense  of  wasting  energy  in  throwing  food 
around  f 

The  corridors  of  the  Quad,  beautiful  in  the 
misty  twilight,  murmured  with  the  low  talk  and 
lagging  footsteps  of  couples  waiting  there. 
Down  toward  Roble  a  mandolin  tinkled  sadly  and 
a  voice  rose  plaintively,  ' '  There  's  a  secret  in  my 
heart,  sweet  Marie!"  The  soft  winter  air,  moist 
with  a  memory  of  first  rain  and  fragrant  with 
young  grass  and  eucalyptus  trees,  blew  across  the 
open  fields.  Oh,  it  was  great  to  be  alive;  to  be 
alive  and  in  Stanford ! 


120  THE  MAKING  OF 

The  new  year  opened  auspiciously,  for  with  it 
came  the  heralded  geologist  from  Arkansas.  Dr. 
Branner  proved  to  be  another  big  fellow,  like 
Jordan  and  Swain,  thickly  bearded,  with  an  ex 
pression  that  reminded  Bert  of  an  eagle.  He 
brought  with  him  several  young  men  who  had  been 
working  under  him  on  the  state  survey  of  Ark 
ansas.  These  men  registered  at  Stanford  for 
graduate  work  under  Branner.  Bert  saw  several 
of  them  at  work  installing  the  geological  labora 
tory  in  the  rooms  next  to  President  Jordan  and 
the  registrar.  He  had  gone  to  Dr.  Branner  and 
told  him  of  his  desire  to  register  in  geology.  Dr. 
Branner 's  class  in  Geology  1  called  for  five  hours 
a  week  and  freshmen  were  welcome.  Bert 
dropped  drawing  and  plunged,  delighted,  into  this 
fascinating  new  acquaintance  with  the  earth.  Its 
secrets  were  opened  to  him:  he  saw  disclosed  the 
vast  epochs  of  time,  the  aeons  of  nature's  blind, 
wasteful  endeavor  to  create  a  world  and  people  it. 

It  was  annoying  to  feel  languid  and  spiritless 
when  there  was  so  much  work  to  be  done.  The 
world  about  him  was  full  of  energy,  expressed  in 
lush  grass,  in  glistening  little  new  leaves  on  every 
tree  and  shrub.  Every  prospect  pleased  and  only 
he  was  feeling  mean  in  the  February  sunshine ;  his 
skin  showed  a  kind  of  rash,  he  was  uncomfortable, 
even  listless.  One  afternoon,  wondering  what 
was  the  matter,  he  went  over  to  the  men's  gym- 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  121 

nasium  and  asked  the  physical  director  for  advice. 
The  doctor  smiled  indulgently. 

"You  are  evidently  a  nature-lover,  like  Pro 
fessor  Griggs.  There  was  a  paper  on  the  door 
this  morning  saying  *  Professor  Griggs  will  not 
meet  his  classes  this  morning.'  Fact  is,  he  is  suf 
fering  like  yourself  from  rhustoxicodendronitis. " 
The  director  smiled  again  at  the  blank  look  on  the 
freshman's  face.  "Poison-oak,  that  is.  Take 
this  and  apply  it  to  the  places  that  itch." 

Bert  took  the  medicine  and  went  over  to  Encina, 
meadow-larks  laughing  at  him  as  he  went.  In 
Eoom  38  he  anointed  himself  dutifully  and  then, 
out  of  sorts  with  life  generally,  he  crawled  into 
bed  in  the  uncurtained  alcove.  Nex,t  morning  he 
did  not  get  up  and  finally  the  doctor  came  in  to 
see  him.  The  rash  was  now  everywhere  on  his 
lanky  body.  This  time  there  were  no  smiles  and 
no  long  words. 

"Measles!"  ejaculated  the  doctor. 

Ten  days  later  Bert  emerged,  blinking,  from 
the  room  whence  his  room-mate  had  unceremoni 
ously  fled.  He  was  feeling  well  enough,  but  his 
eyes  were  acting  queerly.  At  the  doctor 's  urging 
he  went  up  to  the  city  and  was  fitted  to  glasses. 
"You  probably  won't  have  to  wear  them  long," 
the  oculist  encouraged  him. 

This  meant  money  gone  for  misfortunes.  But 
he  was  doing  pretty  well  with  the  agency  for  the 


122  THE  MAKING  OF 

Red  Star  Laundry,  in  Encina.  At  first  he  had  to 
gather  the  laundry  bags  and  to  distribute  the 
paper-wrapped  parcels,  but  now  he  was  getting 
this  done  for  him  and  his  business  was  to  keep  the 
accounts  up  to  the  minute.  Collections  were  not 
so  very  difficult,  except  where  the  boys  had  been 
up  to  the  city  and  there  was  no  money  for  him— 
despite  the  goodly  sums  entered  to  the  account  of 
"  laundry "  in  the  expense  accounts  sent  home. 

"  'Lo,  Bert!     Going  up  for  the  game?" 

"If  I  can  manage  it,  you  bet ! ' ' 

The  first  football  game,  the  first  time  Stanford's 
fresh  new  cardinal  would  wave  above  a  contest 
field  in  glorious  defiance  of  California's  blue-and- 
gold !  He  could  not  afford  to  go,  but  he  could  not 
afford  to  miss  it.  A  dollar  and  a  quarter  for  rail 
way  fare;  ten  cents  for  the  street  cars;  a  ticket 
to  the  bleachers ;  luncheon  at  a  cafe ;  a  bit  of  red 
ribbon  for  his  buttonhole;  dinner  and  the  the 
ater  party  afterward — five  dollars  would  be  gone, 
a  week's  board  and  room.  He  had  had  no 
time  to  watch  the  team  practice  in  the  spring  dusk, 
but  the  very  air  he  breathed  was  electric  with  the 
spirit  of  this  contest.  The  first  game !  Could  he, 
a  loyal  Stanford  man,  stay  away  from  that? 

No.  He  saw  the  special  train  swing  up  the 
spur-track  opposite  Encina  and  the  committee 
busily  decorating  it  with  cardinal  bunting  and  he 


HERBERT  HOOVER  123 

was  in  the  cheering,  riotous  mob  that  poured  from 
the  train  at  Valencia  Street  Station  late  that 
March  morning  and  down  into  the  noisy  confusion 
of  invaded  San  Francisco.  He  swung  on  the  run 
ning-board  of  the  cable-car  that  crawled  up  the 
Haight  Street  hills  through  miles  of  gray  wooden 
houses  to  the  Olympic  Club  grounds  opposite  the 
park,  and  in  the  pushing,  surging  crowd  he  got 
through  the  gates  and  found  his  place  in  the  stand. 

"Rah!     Rah!     Rah! 
Rah  !     Rah !     Rah ! 

Rah !     Rah ! 
STANFORD!" 

His  yell  was  part  of  one  roar  of  sound  from 
four  hundred  throats,  drowning  in  his  ears  the 
derisive  ' '  Ha !  Ha !  Ha ! "  of  California.  Over 
head  the  blue  sky,  the  March  sun  beating  down 
obligingly  on  thousands  of  young  heads,  on  hun 
dreds  of  banners,  cardinal  and  blue-and-gold.  A 
yelling,  hooting,  cheering,  stirring  crowd.  There 
on  the  field  Stanford's  own,  Stanford  men,  ready 
to  fight  for  Stanford  against  a  team  averaging 
fifteen  pounds  heavier. 

" Great  day,  is  n't  it?" 

"Fine." 

"I  wonder  why  they  don't  get  started." 

Conference  on  the  field.  Captain  Foulks  of 
California,  Captain  Whittemore  of  Stanford, 
heads  together.  A  pause.  A  restlessness 


124  THE  MAKING  OF 

spreading.  The  college  yells  again.  And  again! 
But  questions  running  along  the  tiers  of  seats. 

"Is  something  wrong?  Why  don't  they 
start  ?" 

"Isn't  it  time  the  game  began? " 

"Half  an  hour  late  already.  What  's  the  mat 
ter?" 

"Funny,  isn't  it,  Bert?" 

"Yes." 

"What  do  you  think  's  happened?" 

The  answer  was  spreading  slowly,  from  seat  to 
seat  along  the  packed  rows.  "Nobody  thought  to 
bring  a  football ! ' ' 

"Well,  wha'd'y 'think  about   that,   Bert?"    A 

sound  like  a  sigh  went  over  the  massed  crowds; 

they  were  settling  down  to  wait  the  hour,  sixty 

long  minutes,  for  the  lazy  cable-cars  to  bring  up 

v     the  ball  from  Market  Street. 

"I  think  we  need  some  sort  of  a  system." 

' '  Oh,  well,  Bert,  you  know  they  've  got  too  much 
to  think  about. ' ' 

"Yes.     That  's  the  reason." 

But  even  his  clear  sanity  was  lost  when  the  game 
began.  Turmoil.  Shouting.  Fearful  suspense 
running  along  the  nerves  like  a  chill.  Yell  after 
yell  of  triumph  shaking  the  air. 

Victory!  Victory  for  Stanford!  Victory  for 
the  Stanford  spirit!  Fourteen  to  ten  for  Stan 
ford  !  Drag  home  your  blue-and-gold  in  the  dust, 


HERBERT  HOOVER  125 

Berkeley.  The  young  university  has  shown  what 
your  quarter-century-old  haughtiness  was  worth ! 
Stanford!  Wow! 

Hoarse,  exhausted  with  shouting  yet  shouting 
still,  intoxicated  with  the  crowd's  intoxication,  he 
marched  with  the  fellows  down  the  hills  and  into 
Market  Street.  The  town  was  theirs,  the  world 
was  theirs,  the  universe  was  theirs.  Fourteen  to 
ten,  for  Stanford ! 

Dinner  at  a  restaurant  rocking  with  noise. 
"The  Spider  and  the  Fly"  at  the  Bush  Street 
Theatre.  Then  the  special  train  at  midnight, 
along  with  the  happy  team.  Five  dollars  nearly 
gone,  careful  little  figures  in  the  account  book. 
But  it  was  worth  it.  Glory,  it  was  worth  it ! 

Five  days  later  Senator  and  Mrs.  Stanford  came 
home  from  Washington.  The  senator's  red  buggy 
wheels  flashed  once  more  in  the  sunlight  as  he 
made  his  morning  rounds  of  the  stock-farm.  The 
word  rang  through  Encina : ' 'I  '11  tell  you,  fellows ! 
Let  's  give  them  a  serenade  to-night." 

Mandolins  and  guitars  twanged  to  tuning 
thumbs.  The  tramp  of  four  hundred  feet  on  the 
road  between  the  vineyard  and  the  windows  of  the 
Stanford  house  softly  yellow  through  the  foliage 
ahead.  The  windows  grew  larger,  sharp-edged; 
their  light  dimly  illumined  the  wide  veranda. 

"Sh!    Shut    up,    there!    Want    to    give    us 


126  THE  MAKING  OF 

away!"  the  leader's  whisper  hissed  through  the 
shuffling  crowd.  "Keep  still,  can't  you!  Eeady 
now?  All  right.  Now,  all  together— 

' '  We  '11  rush,  we  '11  rush,  we  '11  rush  the  ball  along ; 
A  kick,  a  shove,  we  '11  send  it  through  the  throng." 

Bravely  the  mandolins,  the  banjos,  and  the 
guitars  beat  out  the  tune  and  loudly  rang  the 
voices,  awakening  the  rabbits  and  the  quail  in  the 
arboretum.  Bert  did  not  sing ;  he  had  never  tried 
to  sing,  but  there  under  the  stars  he  lifted  up  his 
voice  with  the  others  as  he  had  lifted  it  in  town, 
for  he  was  a  Stanford  man. 

*  *  While  we   are  shouting  for  Stanford  ! ' ' 

The  dark  veranda  was  suddenly  flooded  with 
radiance  from  a  ceiling  light  and  there  in  the  door 
way  was  the  gray-haired  senator,  dignified  and 
stately,  with  a  voice  that  was  a  little  unsteady: 

"Thank  you,  gentlemen.  I — thank  you.  Mrs. 
Stanford  and  I  wish  to — We  'd  be  glad  to  have 
you  come  in." 

They  walked  soberly  and  respectfully  through 
the  hall,  into  the  library.  Two  hundred  fellows, 
they  almost  filled  it.  Bert  backed  against  the  wall 
and  Lester  Hinsdale  backed  against  him.  In  a 
hollow  square,  three  boys  deep,  the  serenaders 
stood,  lining  the  walls.  California's  children, 
come  to  fill  an  empty  place.  The  senator  stood 
rather  helplessly  before  them,  clearing  his  throat. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  127 

Then  Mrs.  Stanford,  in  her  rich  black  dress  with 
its  touches  of  purple,  looking  as  though  she  were 
about  to  cry,  put  out  her  hands : 

' '  Oh,  my  dear  young  gentlemen !  We  were  just 
leaving  Washington  when  the  news  came.  I  can't 
tell  you  how  delighted  we  were  to  hear  of  the  great 
victory  in  baseball!"  A  little  shudder  ran 
through  the  ranks,  while  two  hundred  minds  cried 
silently,  "FOOTBALL!" 

"And  which  is  Mr.  Clemans?"  The  moment 
ary  coldness  melted  in  enthusiasm.  Twenty 
hands  pushed  forward  the  blushing  full-back. 
The  senator  shook  his  hand ;  Mrs.  Stanford  shook 
his  hand  and  for  an  exciting  moment  seemed  about 
to  kiss  him.  Then,  standing  with  a  hand  on  the 
hero's  shoulder,  the  senator  spoke  to  his  collective 
sons. 

He  spoke  gravely  and  earnestly,  urging  them  all 
to  practise'  just  those  virtues  that  had  been 
preached  to  Bert  Hoover  since  his  earliest  infancy. 

"And  remember,"  he  said,  at  the  end:  "upon 
the  individual  efforts  of  each  of  you  mainly  de 
pends  your  future  success  in  life.  All  we  can  do 
for  you  is  to  place  the  opportunity  within  your 
reach.  A  generous  education  should  be  the  birth 
right  of  every  American  citizen.  The  opportunity 
is  yours ;  it  rests  with  you  to  grasp  and  improve 
it.  Remember  that  life  is  above  all  practical. 
You  are  here  to  fit  yourself  for  a  useful  career. 


128  THE  MAKING  OF 

Mrs.  Stanford  and  I  want  you  to  know  that  in  each 
individual  student  we  feel  a  parental  interest." 

His  words  somehow  were  finer  than  on  the  open 
ing  day,  more  impressive  here  in  this  quiet  library. 
But  his  presence  spoke  louder  than  his  words. 
He  stood  there  a  big,  powerful  man,  a  man  hon 
ored  by  a  place  in  his  country's  Senate,  and  he 
seemed  the  symbol  of  the  practical  worth  of  the 
virtues  that  he  preached.  He  stood  for  an  honest 
success,  well  earned ;  great  wealth,  well  used. 

Next  month  came  the  victory  in  the  first  game 
of  baseball  and  the  gleeful  nightgown  parade  that 
celebrated  it,  a  ghostly  drill  of  triumph  over  the 
road  to  Palo  Alto,  now  becoming  a  town.  Bert 
was  only  mildly  interested.  The  real  concern  of 
life  lay  in  the  chance  of  going  to  Arkansas  with 
Newsom,  one  of  the  older  men,  and  getting  work 
on  the  survey,  for  all  it  would  mean  to  him  in 
experience  and  money.  Commencement  Week  ar 
rived,  an  occasion  of  interest  for  the  handful  of 
seniors  from  other  colleges,  taking  their  degrees 
from  the  new  university,  but  of  little  importance 
to  the  freshman  hordes,  headed  for  home.  He  had 
passed  with  flying  colors  in  all  the  subjects  he 
cared  about,  but  English  IB  was  left  to  drag 
behind  him  through  another  year.  And  now  the 
Arkansas  dream  was  coming  true  and  he  was  off 
to  work  in  geology  and  to  be  paid  for  it ! 


HERBERT  HOOVER  129 

At  five  o'clock  on  a  cloudy  afternoon  six  months 
later  he  laid  down  the  little  hammer  with  which 
he  had  been  driving  neat  rows  of  pins  into  a  block 
of  wood,  straightened  his  bent  shoulders,  and 
sighed.  The  big  room  in  the  Geology  Building 
was  already  dark ;  only  his  shaded  light  poured  a 
pool  of  radiance  on  his  table ;  the  other  boys  had 
gone.  It  was  time  to  get  home  to  supper  and 
geology  text-books. 

He  put  away  neatly  the  boxes  of  pins,  the  ham 
mer,  the  piece  of  wood  almost  covered  with  a  cor 
rugated  surface  of  steel  points.  To-morrow  he 
could  begin  filling  them  in  with  clay.  He  'd  been 
pretty  lucky,  getting  that  Arkansas  relief-map 
job.  There  were  advantages  in  being  poor. 
Take  Kimball,  now ;  Kimball  was  as  good  in  geol 
ogy  as  he  was,  but  Kimball 's  father  had  money. 
Kimball  hadn't  got  that  chance  to  work  all  sum 
mer  in  Arkansas.  Valuable  experience  it  had 
been,  too.  Pretty  soft,  getting  a  job  that  taught 
him  while  it  fed  him ! 

A  drizzling  rain  was  beginning  to  dim  and 
soften  the  lights  of  the  Quad,  making  them  misty 
yellow  globes.  Long  silvery  streaks  of  light  lay 
on  the  shining  black  pavements  under  the  arches. 
He  walked  rapidly,  head  bent,  in  that  fast,  tireless 
stride  that  left  behind  him  any  man  who  tried  to 
keep  up  with  his  hill  walks.  The  glimmering 
of  Encina  faded  into  the  darkness  behind  him  as 


130  THE  MAKING  OF 

he  swung  down  the  long  drive  toward  Palo  Alto. 

In  twelve  months  the  wheat-fields  by  the  railway 
tracks  had  become  a  little  town,  a  scattered  group 
of  new  houses  connected  by  muddy  roads  and 
wandering  narrow  sidewalks.  He  lived  there 
now,  in  Romero  Hall,  a  furnished  house  rented  and 
managed  cooperatively.  Eeturning  to  Stanford 
that  fall  to  find  the  cooking  at  Encina  no  better 
and  the  price  raised  to  $28.50  a  month,  he  had 
quietly  helped  to  organize  Eomero  Hall. 

The  boys  were  already  eating  in  the  dining- 
room.  He  flung  his  cap  at  the  hall  rack,  ran  a 
hand  through  his  hair,  and  slipped  into  his  place. 

DeLos  Magee  was  listening  tolerantly  to  a  row 
about  football;  Frank  Drumheller,  the  Wildcat 
from  Walla  Walla,  pounded  the  table  in  his  earn 
estness,  while  Frank  Nash  and  Ajax  Brown  both 
talked  at  the  same  time,  caring  less  to  be  heard 
than  to  express  their  opinions.  Frank  Nash  was 
a  rich  man's  son  who  courted  the  reputation  of  a 
sport.  Yes,  decidedly  there  were  advantages  in 
being  poor.  Just  the  same,  it  was  a  good  thing  to 
be  a  mixer.  Strange  that  a  fellow  could  n  't  break 
out  of  his  shell  more  easily;  his  mind  worked 
quickly  enough  inside  it ;  it  was  only  in  expressing 
himself  that  he  felt  awkward,  tied  down  by  some 
thing  intangible. 

His  abstemious  meal  finished,  he  slid  back  from 
the  table. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  131 

"Hoover,  why  the  devil  don't  you  eat  more?" 
Fred  Williams  demanded.  "Fatten  up ;  put  some 
flesh  on  that  skeleton  of  yours." 

"I  use  my  food  for  high-class  tissue,  Fred." 
He  stretched  his  angular,  loose-jointed  body,  put 
his  feet  in  another  chair,  and  leaned  back  quietly 
for  a  little  amusement.  He  knew  the  idiosyncra 
sies  of  that  Romero  crowd,  held  together  by  the 
one  common  need  of  comfortable  living  outside  of 
Encina.  Nothing  was  more  fun  than  to  get  them 
started  by  a  word  or  two  and  then  sit  back  and 
listen.  "Well,  you  Daffodil  Poet,  how  are  you 
getting  along  with  Barrack-room  Ballads?" 

They  were,  off.  Edward  Maslin  Hulme,  writer 
of  delicate  lyrics,  started  at  the  touch  of  the  flick 
ing  remark. 

"You  rock-digger,  your  soul  's  calcined  by  your 
intimate  association  with  subterrestrial  strata. 
What  do  you  know  about  poetry?  Kipling  's  a 
great  poet — the  voice  of  the  best  English— 

Chet  Magee  leaned  forward:  "Kipling's  cal 
cined  himself,  with  rotten  British  imperialism. 
If  you  're  talking  English  poetry,  talk  Browning. " 

Charley  Cram  came  in  at  that :  "Yes,  or  Shelley. 
If  you  can  show  me  anything  in  Browning  that 
touches  the  lipe— 

Bert  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets,  slid  far 
ther  down  on  his  backbone,  and  gave  himself  up 
to  the  fun  of  listening. 


132  THE  MAKING  OF 

"Any  quotation  from  the  English  poets  is 
good,"  the  Daffodil  Poet  declared,  and  was 
cheered  by  a  burst  of  applause  from  the  literary 
end  of  the  table,  mingled  with  antagonistic  groans. 

"The  only  good  English  poet  that  ever  lived 
was  a  Scotchman  who  knew  good  booze, "  scoffed 
Fred  Williams,  the  Dago-red  expert. 

"What  's  the  matter  with  Byron  !"  Frank  Nash 
demanded,  true  to  form  as  a  sport.  "The  only 
English  poem  worth  a  damn  is  Don  Juan." 

"Worth  a  damn  is  right,"  said  Fred  Burrows, 
but  the  Wildcat  from  Walla  Walla  was  talking, 
too: 

"You  fellows  all  make  me  sick.  You  're  all 
mushy.  No  real  two-gun  man  can  read  poetry 
without  turning  into  a  sissy. ' '  Two  chairs  tipped 
over  backward;  the  Daffodil  Poet  and  Tom  Pom- 
eroy  were  restrained  by  peace-makers,  and 
through  the  melee  Sam  Collins  swore  reproach 
fully  at  Bert.  He  got  up. 

"Boys,  why  don't  you  read  some  real  poetry 
made  in  America!"  he  said.  "Whitcomb  Riley, 
Walt  Whitman,  Joaquin  Miller!  America 
doesn't  have  to  go  to  England  for  poets.  We 
beat  the  English  in  poetry  just  as  we  beat  'em 
in  government  and  beat  'em  in  fight— 

He  went  down  under  the  rush,  four  mad  red- 
faced  champions  of  English  poetry  on  top  of  him. 
But  valiantly  he  defended  himself  with  good 


HERBERT  HOOVER  133 

American  punches,  and  what  did  a  few  broken 
dishes  and  chairs  matter?  Gee,  it  was  great  to 
be  alive! — to  be  alive  and  a  sophomore  in  Stan 
ford! 

Grinning,  he  emerged  from  the  scrap.  The  fel 
lows  liked  him,  when  they  thought  of  him  at  all. 
He  picked  up  a  chair  or  two,  went  into  the  hallway, 
and  pulled  on  his  cap.  Upstairs  there  was  a 
sound  of  feet,  slamming  doors,  running  water. 
One  of  the  English  champions  was  dressing  to  go 
to  a  dance.  Bert  would  have  liked  to  dance,  but 
his  very  muscles  balked  at  attempting  it.  Collins, 
coming  through  the  hallway,  clapped  him  on  the 
shoulder.  "Going  to  help  me  tackle  those  bills 
to-night?  They  're  in  one  holy  mess.  Somehow 
I  can't  make  those  wholesalers  total  up  their 
statements  or  send  'em  on  time,  and  there  's  two 
crates  of  festive  eggs  I  got  to  chase  down  before 
I  die." 

"Sure  I  will,"  he  replied.  "I  Ve  got  to  see  a 
man  on  laundry  business  now,  but  I  '11  be  right 
back." 

The  rain  had  ceased ;  a  star  twinkled  here  and 
there  amid  banks  of  driven  cloud.  One  street- 
lamp  shed  a  doubtful  light  on  Waverley  Street, 
where  the  two-plank  sidewalk  offered  a  refuge 
from  the  mud.  The  shrill  clamor  of  tree-toads 
sang  tenor  to  the  bass  of  frogs  in  the  ditches ;  the 
boards  creaked  beneath  his  quick  step.  In  a  pool 


134  THE  MAKING  OF 

of  darkness  under  an  oak  he  stopped  suddenly 
and  stood  alert.  There  was  a  sharp  yell  from  the 
darkness  ahead.  The  sound  of  a  desperate,  pant 
ing  struggle.  Curses.  Cries  of  derisive  triumph. 
"No  you  don't!  Oh,  you  would,  would  you?" 
Dimly  he  saw  four  figures  carrying  away  a  fifth, 
like  a  scene  in  a  melodrama.  He  slid  quietly  close 
to  the  tree  trunk. 

A  rush!  No  one  had  told  him  of  it,  but  there 
it  was.  Those  young  Freshies  were  out  after  the 
Sophs,  were  they!  Luckily  he  was  wearing  his 
work  clothes  and  could  put  up  a  fight  if  they 
jumped  him.  He  put  his  cap  in  his  coat  pocket; 
the  boards  creaked  no  more  under  his  weight. 

In  and  out  of  the  shadow,  skirting  mud-puddles, 
tangling  his  feet  in  cross-lot  weeds,  cautiously 
alert  as  an  Indian,  he  followed  the  hilarious  fresh 
men  and  their  victim.  Ah!  Piles  of  lumber, 
heaps  of  shavings,  the  scaffolding  of  an  unfinished 
house !  The  freshmen  disappeared  in  the  black 
ness  of  the  open  doorway.  Strange,  muffled 
sounds,  and  grunts,,  and  joyous,  exultant,  laughter 
sounded  within  the  thin  walls.  The  four  fresh 
men  came  out  and  did  a  silent  war-dance  of  delight 
before  they  raced  back  on  the  way  they  had  come. 

He  stepped  across  the  threshold  and  felt  his  way 
up  unrailed  stairs  in  the  darkness.  The  floor  of 
the  upper  room  was  covered  with  bound  figures, 
writhing  in  sawdust  among  kegs  of  nails  and  scat- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  135 

tered  tools.  "Sst!  It  's  me— Bert  Hoover, "  he 
whispered,  and  the  silence  was  like  a  shout.  He 
felt  for  ropes,  slashing  them  with  his  knife. 
Exclamations,  curses,  and  threats  followed  the 
handkerchief  gags  from  twenty  sophomore  mouths. 

" Those  damn  Freshies!  Come  on,  fellows! 
Let  's  give  'em— 

1  'No.  We  don't  want  to  throw  away  our  ad 
vantage.  Lay  low,  and  surprise  'em  when  they 
come  back, ' '  he  urged. 

"Bert  's  right,  boys.  If  we  keep  still  and  wait 
for  >em — »  They  lay  together  in  the  pine-smell 
ing  darkness,  whispered  tales  of  treachery  and 
vows  of  revenge  buzzing  among  them. 

"Sh!  They  're  coming!"  Feet  in  the  grass. 
Feet  on  the  lumber  piles.  Feet  on  the  stairs. 
Silently  Bert  seized  a  freshman  around  the  knees 
and  brought  him  yelping  down.  And  then  pande 
monium.  Wild  yells,  crashing  bodies,  rocking 
floors.  Boot-soles  in  his  face,  hands  in  his  hair. 
"Let  go,  you  blamed  fool!  I 'm  Ninety-five !" 
Friends,  foes,  one  struggling  mass.  Fists  landing 
somewhere,  grunts.  Outside,  shrill  yells  of  Fresh 
men  raising  the  alarm.  Ladders  against  the 
walls,  windows  blocked  with  fresh  enemies.  Gee, 
what  a  fight !  What  a  fight ! 

A  freshman  in  his  arms.  Too  close  to  strike. 
Straining  muscles,  heaving  chest,  gasps.  Roll 
ing.  Over,  under,  up  again.  Hanging  on,  teeth 


136  THE  MAKING  OF 

set — and  then  a  sickening  instant  on  a  brink- 
balancing,  swaying — and  over  the  edge.  Ugh! 
He  struck  mud  and  shavings  on  the  ground  below. 
Breath  gone.  The  weight  of  the  Freshie  on  his 
chest.  Yells  of  freshman  triumph.  Yells  for 
help,  and  for  ropes.  The  Sophs  were  overcome. 
A  knee  in  his  chest,  a  rope  around  his  straining 
wrists.  ' '  Come  on,  you  Sophs !  The  camera  's 
waiting.  You  're  going  to  have  a  picture  of  your 
selves,  all  made  just  for  you!"  " Won't  you  be 
beautiful  in  your  pretty  little  ropes  on  the  steps 
of  Encina?"  "Oh,  naughty,  naughty!  Help 
me  gag  this  chap,  somebody.  His  language  is  n't 
nice,  it  '11  spoil  the  flash-light.  Oh,  you  would 
bite,  would  you?  Such  a  pretty  little  sophomore, 
too!"  "Now,  fellows!  Bring  'em  on  to  the 
'bus!" 

Quietly,  curved  in  the  darkness,  Bert  loosened 
the  knot  at  his  ankles.  A  swift  turn  of  his  body, 
a  straight,  hard  kick,  a  freshman  howl  lost  in  the 
uproar,  and  he  was  free.  Running  across  the 
fields,  dodging  through  gardens,  over  a  fence, 
around  a  barn, — and  shaking  with  silent  laughter 
he  trotted  down  his  own  street  and  into  Romero. 

"Good  Lord,  Bert!  What's  been  the  row?" 
Sam  Collins  gazed  at  him  across  a  table  littered 
with  papers. 

He  brushed  the  shavings  from  his  coat  with  a 
hasty  hand  and  slid  into  a  chair.  "Freshmen  try- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  137 

ing  to  tie  up  the  whole  Pioneer  Class.  Great 
scrap.  I  just  happened  along  in  time- 
Collins  leaned  back  and  listened.  Several  years 
older  than  Bert,  he  too  was  working  his  way 
through  college;  he  sold  school  supplies.  It  was 
easy  to  be  natural  and  chummy  with  men  like  him. 
He  understood  a  fellow.  He  didn't  go  in  for 
dancing  and  girls,  either ;  he  had  a  good  hard  grip 
on  life.  It  was  these  facile,  light-hearted,  easy 
going  fellows  that  made  the  old  inhibitions  close 
upon  a  man  like  a  shell.  Sam  Collins  was  as  easy 
to  get  along  with  as  a  professor. 

Dr.  Branner,  now — he  was  like  an  old  friend. 
And  the  new  professor,  J.  P.  Smith,  who  had 
come  on  to  Stanford  to  teach  paleontology — he  was 
a  good  chum  on  a  camping  trip.  They  had  had 
good  fun  and  learned  a  lot,  too,  on  the  trip  to 
Pescadero  in  search  of  fossil  shells ;  another  expe 
dition,  this  time  to  Ocean  View,  was  already 
planned.  Professors,  and  men  like  Collins  and 
Kimball,  were  interested  in  the  things  that  inter 
ested  him;  their  minds  ran  in  the  same  channels. 
Just  the  same,  he  was  missing  something  by  not 
being  a  better  mixer;  a  man  ought  to  be  able  to 
get  both  sides  of  college  life. 

"Athletics  are  certainly  picking  up,"  said  Col 
lins.  "Now  that  Walter  Camp  's  out  here  to 
coach  the  team  there  '11  be  something  doing  in  the 
game." 


138  THE  MAKING  OF 

"Yes.  Stanford  's  pretty  busy  these  days. 
Baseball,  football,  debating  clubs,  concerts.  It  's 
all  in  a  muddle,  though.  Student-body  affairs 
ought  to  be  organized. ' ' 

"Well,  what  can  you  do  when  the  seniors  and 
frats  have  got  all  the  jobs!  I  don't  like  the  fra 
ternity  idea  much,  Bert.  I  'm  afraid  it  's  bad  for 
the  democratic  spirit  of  the  university.  The 
under-classmen  are  the  real  Stanford  crowd. 
There  aren't  fifty  upper-classmen,  and  yet 
they  're  running  things  because  they  brought  in 
the  fraternities." 

"No,  that  isn't  it.  The  trouble  is  that  they 
aren't  running  things.  Everybody's  starting 
something  on  his  own  hook;  there  isn't  any  co- 
\  ordination  of  activities.  There  ought  to  be  some 
unified  system,  with  a  responsible  head.  Here  the 
student  body  will  be  handling  thousands  of  dol 
lars,  and  no  one  person  responsible.  Some 
crowds  making  money  and  some  losing  it,  and  no 
one  knowing  where  it  comes  from  or  where  it  goes 
to.  And  there  are  a  lot  of  enterprises  worth  while 
that  don 't  pay  in  money.  If  there  was  a  central 
clearing  house,  those  that  do  make  money  could 
carry  the  others." 

"You're  right  about  that,  Bert." 

It  was  a  big  problem.  Hundreds  of  students; 
scores  of  different  groups  among  them.  Activi 
ties  rising  spontaneously  in  all  directions.  The 


HERBERT  HOOVER  139 

classes  of  '95  and  '96,  sophomores  and  freshmen, 
the  bulk  of  the  university,  a  huge  formless  mass 
struggling  blindly  toward  some  form.  Politics  in 
the  hands  of  the  few  upper-classmen  who  had  come 
from  old  universities.  No  one  else  giving  much 
attention  to  them.  No  coherent  Stanford  student 
body  yet  created. 

"Well,  are  we  going  to  get  at  those  Romero 
bills  to-night?" 

The  junior  year  began  in  mourning.  Senator 
Stanford  was  dead.  He  had  died  in  the  summer, 
his  going  casting  a  gloom  over  the  early  vacation 
months  during  which  the  relief -map  of  Arkansas 
was  finished,  and  clouding  the  joyful  news  that  it 
had  received  a  prize  at  the  World's  Fair  at  Chi 
cago.  The  summer  had  struggled  under  the  blight 
of  the  panic  of  '93.  Nineteen  banks  had  failed  in 
three  days  in  Oregon;  Uncle  John  Minthorri  had 
been  ruined.  It  was  not  a  happy  vacation,  though 
Bert  had  found  some  interesting  tertiary  speci 
mens  in  the  Oregon  mountains  and  sent  down  to 
the  university  a  collection  of  fossils  found  on  the 
Astoria  trail  of  the  Wilkes  expedition  of  the 
thirties. 

He  opened  the  year  with  fifteen  hours  credits 
for  summer  work  in  geology.  The  panic  has  not 
touched  his  little  inheritance,  guarded  faithfully 
by  Laurie  Tatum,  but  only  a  couple  of  hundred 


140  THE  MAKING  OF 

dollars  remained  of  it.  However,  the  State  of 
Arkansas  had  paid  him  well  for  his  work  on  the 
map,  and  Dr.  Branner  promised  him  jobs  in  the 
laboratory. 

The  new  blacksmith  shop  had  opened,  too,  offer 
ing  a  fascinating  knowledge  of  metals  and  tools. 
"Dad"  Peterson,  silent  and  absorbed  as  himself, 
gazed  at  his  first  efforts  from  beneath  bushy  eye 
brows  and  offered  one  warning: 

"There  's  no  use  working  nine  hours  at  this, 
Hoover.  I  can't  give  credits  for  more  than  three 
hours." 

"Well,  Dad,  I  '11  just  credit  myself  with  the 
other  six,"  he  replied  cheerfully.  After  that  the 
shop  was  his.  He  could  use  the  treasured  lathe 
whenever  he  wanted  it;  he  was  freely  allowed 
expensive  metals  with  which  to  work  when  the 
supply  ran  short,  and  other  students,  driven  to 
foraging  for  them,  brought  from  the  ranch  black 
smith  bitter  complaints  that  steel  and  iron  myster 
iously  vanished  if  he  so  much  as  laid  them  down. 

There  was  no  more  money  for  additional  equip 
ment,  hardly  enough  for  running-expenses,  in 
Stanford  now.  The  estate  was  in  litigation ;  on 
Senator  Stanford's  death  the  United  States  Gov 
ernment  had  demanded  the  repayment  of  some 
millions  of  dollars  lent  by  it  to  the  railroad  he 
had  helped  to  build.  If  the  Government  won  the 
suit,  the  university  must  close  its  doors;  mean- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  141 

while  it  struggled  on  under  an  increasing  load  of 
debt,  professors  giving  up  part  of  their  small 
salaries,  students  working  shoulder  to  shoulder 
with  them  in  the  common  danger  and  hope. 

Politics  was  in  the  air  that  year.  The  Stanford 
spirit  was  becoming  coherent.  It  expressed  itself 
suddenly  in  a  consciousness  on  the  part  of  the 
"barbs,"  the  non-fraternity  element,  that  the  fra 
ternity  groups  were  acting  for  themselves  rather 
than  for  Stanford  as  a  whole.  The  barbs  were 
growing  revolutionary. 

"That  'Psi'  is  spelled  wrong,"  said  Bert 
Hoover,  lounging  one  night  in  Sam  Collins 's  room. 
"It  ought  to  be  spelled  s-i-g-h." 

'  '  Yeh !    Why  so,  Hoover  ? ' ' 

"Because,  like  Alexander  the  Great,  they  sigh 
because  there  are  no  more  jobs  or  offices  to  con 


quer  ' 


Collins  looked  up  from  his  book.  This  matter 
of  fraternity  dominance  had  engaged  his  attention 
for  some  time ;  he  had  talked  to  some  of  the  faculty 
about  it,  and  to  Harvard  and  Yale  graduates  he 
met  in  the  city.  He  was  curious  to  know  how 
they  thought  the  system  worked  out  in  the  older 
universities;  was  it  abused  politically  as  it  had 
come  to  be  at  Stanford? 

"Hoover,"  he  said,  "how  do  you  feel  about 
this  thing?  Are  you  against  a  man  simply  be 
cause  he  's  a  frat  man?" 


142  THE  MAKING  OF 

Bert  took  his  feet  from  the  table  and  sat  up. 
"No,"  he  said,  intensely.  "It  isn't  that.  I  'm 
against  any  man,  frat  or  barb,  who  puts  his  own 
crowd  ahead  of  the  college.  I  'm  for  the  man,  not 
for  the  bunch  he  belongs  to.  Look  at  the  way 
things  stand  here.  It  isn't  the  fitness  of  a  man 
for  the  job;  it  is  n't  even  a  matter  of  reward  for 
services.  It  's  simply  to  boost  some  fraternity  by 
taking  everything  in  sight.  What  we  need  is  a 
spirit  of  service  to  the  whole  student  body.  I  'm 
against  the  fraternities  simply  because  they  use 
their  organizations  to  keep  the  mass  of  the  stu 
dents  from  getting  a  fair  shake." 

"Hoover,  come  into  the  fight!" 

"All  right,  I  will." 

Lester  Hinsdale  dropped  in  and  welcomed  the 
recruit  with  enthusiasm  into  a  game  in  which  he 
was  already  keenly  interested. 

"But  what  we  need  also,"  said  Bert,  warming 
to  the  new  activity,  "is  a  real  organization  of 
student-body  affairs.  We  '11  never  get  anywhere 
with  anything  at  loose  ends  this  way.  We 
need—" 

' '  System ! ' '  completed  Collins.  '  *  You  organiza 
tion  shark !  You  'd  like  to  audit  Stanford  the  way 
you  audited  Romero's  grocery  bills  last  year. 
Hoover  would  make  a  good  treasurer  for  the  stu 
dent  body,  Hinsdale." 

Of  course,  his  lack  of  personal  popularity  was 


HERBERT  HOOVER  143 

a  drawback  to  a  political  career.  He  would  have 
to  break  down  the  shell  that  had  grown  so  hard 
around  him  in  Oregon,  get  out  of  it  somehow. 
He  was  going  every  Sunday  now  to  the  informal 
evenings  at  Dr.  Branner's,  and  getting  along 
very  well,  prodding  himself  out  of  his  habit  of 
silence,  helping  to  pass  the  steaming  cups  of  choc 
olate  that  Mrs.  Branner  poured.  He  tried  a  few 
dance-steps  with  the  boys  in  the  parlor  at  Encina 
and  grinned  cheerfully  when  bystanders  kidded 
him.  ' '  I  think  it  is  good  for  a  man  to  be  a  mixer, ' ' 
he  said;  "good  in  every  wray." 

The  spring  was  coming.  Another  year  and  he 
would  be  leaving  Stanford.  Now  for  the  big 
fight,  the  election  of  student-body  officers  for  his 
senior  year.  Big  projects  were  afoot,  big  plans 
worked  out  in  the  conferences  of  the  barb  leaders. 
He  was  one  of  them  now,  a  man  to  be  reckoned 
with  in  Stanford  politics.  He  worked  with  Zion 
on  the  new  constitution;  his  suggestions  were 
heard  with  respect,  discussed,  accepted.  There 
must  be  an  entire  reorganization  of  university 
affairs ;  the  creation  of  a  new  executive  committee 
of  the  student  body  with  full  control  over  all  the 
funds  received  from  student  activities. 

"The  way  things  are  going  here  is  rotten,  sim 
ply  rotten !  The  athletic  committee  is  a  farce.  It 
does  n't  build  toward  anything ;  it  has  n't  any  defi 
nite  Stanford  spirit;  it  simply  takes  in  all  the 


144  THE  MAKING  OF 

money  it  can  get  and  lets  it  go  no  one  knows 
where.  It  exists  simply  to  bust  the  surplus.  And 
look  at  the  way  it  lets  the  management  go.  The 
idea  of  allowing  volunteer  teams  to  organize  them 
selves  and  go  out  and  call  themselves  Stanford 
teams  and  divide*  the  gate-receipts !  It  's  out 
rageous.  The  treasurer  of  the  executive  commit 
tee  must  be  given  full  control  of  the  whole  athletic 
activity — yes,  and  all  shows  and  enterprises  under 
the  Stanford  name — and  he  must  be  held  responsi 
ble  for  it  all.  With  acting  managers  under  him." 
"You  're  right,  Hoover.  And  you  're  the  man 
for  the  job." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  about  that,  Hinsdale." 
Yet  his  heart  had  leaped.  A  big  opportunity! 
To  be  the  man  to  pull  all  that  college  world 
together,  to  organize  it,  put  it  on  a  solid  basis, 
leave  it  as  a  monument  behind  him  when  he  left 
Stanford !  His  big  chance  to  distinguish  himself 
as  a  Stanford  man.  But  there  were  many  things 
to  be  considered.  The  barbs  must  put  up  a  man 
who  could  be  elected,  too.  He  was  not  very  pop 
ular.  The  boys  had  a  certain  confidence  in  him, 
no  doubt;  they  knew  from  the  laundry  business 
that  he  could  handle  accounts.  He  was  treasurer 
of  the  class,  right  then,  but  that  amounted  to  little. 
Could  he  swing  a  winning  vote  for  a  big  job?  The 
"Camp"  would  be  for  him, — fifty  or  sixty  men, 
solid  barb,  inhabiting  the  makeshift  buildings 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  145 

deserted  by  the  workmen,  cooking  their  own  food, 
washing  their  own  clothes,  many  of  them  the 
brightest  minds  in  college.  He  was  at  home  in 
that  crowd ;  in  many  ways  they  were  his  kind  of 
men.  "Hoover  can  deliver  the  Camp,"  Hinsdale 
and  Collins  agreed.  But  there  were  Eoble  Hall, 
the  frats,  the  musical  and  literary  crowds,  the 
athletic  group.  He  had  no  influence  in  any  of 
them.  It  was  up  to  his  friends.  If  Collins,  Hins 
dale,  Eay  Wilbur  urged  him  to  run,  offered  their 
support,  he  would  have  enough  backing  to  risk 
making  the  fight.  There  was  no  need  for  false 
modesty;  he  knew  he  could  do  the  job  well  if  he 
got  it.  He  tingled  to  get  at  the  details  of  it.  But 
he  was  not  the  only  man  in  the  university  who 
could  do  the  job  well.  And  there  was  nothing  to 
prevent  his  helping  any  good  man  who  did  get  it. 
But  it  was  a  very  big  chance  for  him.  His  organ 
izing  ability  was  the  one  thing  which  he  could 
give. 

1 1  We  want  you,  Hoover, ' '  they  urged.  ' '  You  're 
absolutely  the  man  for  the  place." 

He  hesitated,  rattling  the  keys  in  his  pocket. 
"I  '11  think  about  it." 

Then  the  night  in  Eay  Wilbur's  room  when  all 
together  they  urged  him  to  make  the  fight,  rea 
soned,  pleaded,  pounded  home  arguments  with 
their  fists  on  the  table. 

"Well,  see  here.    If  I  'm  going  to  run,  there 


146  THE  MAKING  OF 

must  be  a  clause  written  into  the  new  constitution 
providing  that  the  job  doesn't  carry  any  salary 
with  it  until  the  second  year." 

"But,  Hoover,  that  's  nonsense.  You  're  work 
ing  your  way  through.  It  's  going  to  be  a  job 
that  will  take  a  lot  of  your  time.  It  's  worth  a 
decent  salary  and  you  're  entitled  to  it." 

"I  can't  help  that.  I  can't  get  behind  a  consti 
tution  that  gives  the  treasurer  a  fat  salary,  and 
then  run  for  Treasurer.  I  'm  not  in  this  to  get 
myself  a  good  job.  I  want  to  see  the  job  done. 
I  won't  put  myself  in  a  position  where  any  one 
can  say  anything  else." 

"There  's  something  in  that,"  said  Collins, 
thoughtfully. 

"Then  you  '11  run,  Hoover?" 

"If  you  put  it  up  to  me  that  way — "  he  turned 
the  keys  over  and  over  in  his  pocket,  then  thrust 
his  hands  deeper  and  clenched  them — "Yes." 

He  was  in  it  then,  in  it  with  every  ounce  of  his 
energy  and  enthusiasm.  Let  the  lectures  go. 
Laboratory  work  could  wait.  He  already  had 
credits  ahead.  As  for  English,  time  enough  later 
to  worry  about  that.  He  was  rounding  up  sup 
port  for  the  new  constitution,  buttonholing  men 
in  corners  of  the  Quad,  routing  out  groups  at 
Encina  and  getting  them  over  to  meetings  in  the 
chapel.  The  constitution  was  put  through. 

Then  the  fight  for  the  election,  mass  meetings, 


HERBERT  HOOVER  147 

parades,  demonstrations  in  front  of  Encina,  in 
front  of  Roble;  Hinsdale  making  speeches;  hur 
riedly  called  conferences  of  the  inner  circle  at 
midnight  in  Collins 's  room.  Rumors  flying  like 
wildfire  over  the  campus,  skilfully  fought  with 
back-fire  of  other  rumors.  Under  the  arches  of 
the  Quad  and  down  the  road  to  Mayfield  in  the  soft 
April  night  the  wild  campaign  yell : 

"Rah!     Rah!     Rix! 
Hinsdale !     Hoover !     Hicks ! 
Barbs  on  top 
And  the  f rats  in  a  fix!" 

That  was  not  exactly  his  sentiment.  He  was 
against  group  control,  any  group,  anywhere.  But 
it  was  his  group  that  would  bring  about  the  re 
form,  anyway.  They  had  been  without  a  voice  for 
long  enough.  It  was  their  turn  now.  And  he  was 
in  this  game  heart  and  soul.  Let  'em  yell. 

At  five  o'clock  of  election  day  the  vote  was 
announced.  President:  no  election.  Treasurer: 
no  election.  Football  manager:  no  election. 
Never  had  there  been  so  many  votes  polled ;  never 
had  a  contest  been  so  close. 

In  his  room  at  Encina  they  waited  for  the  dinner 
gong.  It  was  a  stern  consultation,  a  determined 
gathering  together  of  forces,  a  canvass  of  possi 
bilities,  vote  by  vote.  "We  're  in  for  a  real  fight 
now.  Let  's  get  this  thing  in  shape."  Hoover 


148  THE  MAKING  OF 

sat  at  the  table,  sheets  of  paper  before  him,  pencil 
in  hand.  " Every  vote  will  count  and  we  can't 
waste  our  energies.  Wilbur,  can  you  get  that 
young  Freshie  Smith  f " 

"Give  him  to  Hinsdale.  He  's  a  queener. 
He  's  gone  on  a  girl  who  wants  to  get  into  the 
Thetas.  Hinsdale  's  got  a  wire  through  there. 
Who  's  next*" 

Methodically  he  went  through  the  lists,  discuss 
ing,  comparing  notes,  jotting  down  memoranda  of 
characters,  private  histories,  secretly  nursed  am 
bitions.  "And  there  are  ten  in  this  university 
reading  mere  books  to  learn  psychology ! ' ' 

A  feverish  week,  in  which  he  slept  little  and  ate 
less.  But  he  never  needed  food  or  rest  when  he 
was  working.  Electioneering  all  day  for  Hins 
dale  and  Hicks.  Nightly  conferences,  names 
checked  off,  lists  revised.  At  two  o'clock  on  the 
last  morning,  "Well,  it  looks  as  though  we  '11  put 
it  through  this  time." 

Again  the  Quad  was  alive  with  voters,  a  crowd 
around  the  polls,  a  steadily  moving  line  past  them. 
On  the  outskirts,  in  the  corners,  backing  doubtful 
ones  against  the  sandstone  walls,  arguing,  brow 
beating,  sternly  holding  up  wabbling  backbones, 
marshaling  the  squads  of  Three-H  votes,  he 
worked  without  pause.  The  vote  was  incredibly 
large.  Not  a  matriculated  soul  had  been  over- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  149 

looked.  In  the  laboratories,  the  corridors,  the 
library,  heelers  were  routing  out  the  indifferent, 
the  political  slackers.  Messengers  rushed  on 
bicycles  to  furnished  rooms  in  Palo  Alto  and 
dragged  digs  from  their  text-books. 

The  polls  closed.  The  count  ended.  Silence 
fell  over  the  waiting  crowds.  But  he  knew  the 
result  before  it  was  read. 

Hinsdale   380;     Magee  274. 

Hoover 370;     Grosh    282. 

Hicks    375 ;     Kessinger  285. 

The  Three  H's  had  won.  In  Encina  that  night 
there  was  a  great  celebration.  The  jubilant  pro 
ponents  of  the  three  winners  were  crowded  to 
gether  so  thickly  that  when  the  champions  ap 
peared  they  had  to  be  passed  over  the  heads  of  the 
crowd  to  a  place  near  the  window  to  make  their 
speeches.  With  an  open  box  of  cigars  in  each 
hand,  the  treasurer-elect  made  this  triumphal 
flight  through  the  air. 

Rah  !     Rah !     Rix ! 
Hinsdale !     Hoover !     Hicks ! 
Barbs  on  top 
And  the  f  rats  in  a  fix ! 

His  election  speech  was  brief.  He  ended  it  with 
a  request  for  another  yell,  though  he  did  not  say 
why  he  called  for  it.  Altogether  now : 


150  THE  MAKING  OF 

Bah !     Rah  !     Rah ! 
Rah!     Rah!     Rah! 

Rah !     Rah ! 

STANFORD ! 

He  returned  to  college  late  the  next  autumn, 
missing  four  weeks  of  his  last  winter  in  Stanford. 
How  quickly  the  golden  years  had  gone!  Only 
eight  months  left.  Prom  the  pine  forests  and 
rocky  peaks  of  the  Sierras  his  thoughts  had  leaped 
longingly  toward  that  missed  opening  day.  But 
the  summer  had  given  him  a  great  opportunity, — 
United  States  Geological  Survey  work  under 
Waldemar  Lindgren,  a  fine  man,  a  big  man  in 
geology.  The  work  has  been  fascinating;  Lind 
gren  had  been  inspiring.  He  had  stayed  until  the 
survey  closed  for  the  winter. 

Now  he  summarized  his  assets  and  liabilities, 
getting  ready  for  the  last  eight  months  he  had 
left.  Laurie  Tatum's  final  payment,  ninety  dol 
lars,  wiped  out  his  inheritance.  With  his  summer 
earnings  he  had  just  enough  to  get  him  through 
till  spring,  so  that  was  off  his  mind.  He  had  got 
an  additional  eight  hours  credits  in  geology  for 
summer  work. 

He  registered  light — four  hours  in  geology,  two 
in  chemistry,  four  in  elementary  German.  Then 
he  plunged  into  the  real  job. 

A  multitude  of  details.  A  mass  of  incoherent 
activities,  unrelated  and  conflicting.  No  accounts 


HEEBERT  HOOVER  151 

had  been  kept  of  receipts  and  expenditures,  no 
policy  formulated.  The  Pioneer  Class  had  gone 
gaily  through  three  years  of  pure  individualism 
and  '96  and  '97  were  following  its  lead,  held  to 
gether  only  by  a  spirit  of  loyalty  to  Stanford  that 
had  not  been  translated  into  any  terms  of  action. 
He  had  in  his  hands  the  making  of  the  student 
body  as  a  compact  unit. 

"I  Ve  got  forty  varieties  of  rows  on  my  hands, " 
he  said,  running  his  hands  through  his  hair  before 
plunging  them  firmly  into  those  pockets  that  were 
his  refuge  in  moments  of  thought.  ' '  Our  athletics 
are  in  one  holy  mess.  Worse  than  I  imagined." 

His  first  move  was  to  install  a  voucher  system 
of  accounting  for  expenditures,  a  system  he  had 
learned  from  the  United  States  Geological  Survey. 
It  was  simple,  compact  and  leak-tight.  Howls 
arose  from  captains,  coaches,  football  heroes. 
The  entire  baseball  team  stormed  him  with  pro 
tests.  "What  's  all  the  row  about!  We  're  ath 
letes,  not  clerks.  There  's  nothing  wrong  with 
our  accounts.  Receipts,  so  much;  expenses,  so 
much.  They  balance,  don't  they?" 

"Yes,  but  where  's  your  surplus.  That  's  no 
way  to  handle  money.  No  use  talking;  you  're 
only  wasting  time.  After  this  the  receipts  come 
into  the  treasury,  and  if  you  get  any  of  'em  out 
again  you  '11  get  it  on  itemized  expense  accounts 
approved  by  the  treasurer." 


152  THE  MAKING  OF 

His  popularity  was  not  growing,  but  respect 
for  him  increased.  He  went  down  expense  ac 
counts  with  a  merciless  pencil.  Not  friendship 
nor  influence  nor  pleading  stayed  its  ruthless 
point.  He  invaded  training-quarters  in  the  gym 
and  overhauled  supplies,  checked  them  up,  cut  out 
waste. 

"No,  you  can't  have  moleskin  pants  to  practise 
in.  I  know  you  're  a  special  hero  and  all  that.  I 
yell  for  you  as  loud  as  anybody.  But  you  don't 
need  moleskin  pants  to  wear  out  practising.  Can 
vas  trousers  for  you,  old  man.  You  can  have 
moleskins  to  lick  Berkeley  in.  But  out  here  you 
wear  the  same  kind  of  pants  the  others  do." 

He  was  traveling  back  and  forth  between  Stan 
ford  and  San  Francisco,  interviewing  ball-park 
managers,  meeting  visiting  athletes.  Hinsdale 
went  with  him,  but  friends  as  they  were,  Hinsdale 
must  pay  his  own  expenses. 

"I  Ve  got  to  come.  It  's  a  business  trip,  with 
me.  But  you  're  just  doing  the  social  thing  as 
student-body  president.  You  ought  to  pay  your 
own  way,  you  can  afford  to  give  something  for  the 
honor  of  being  president.  I  'd  pay  mine  if  I  had 
the  money.  I  'm  going  to  pile  up  a  surplus  in 
the  treasury. " 

The  task  absorbed  him.  The  only  class  work 
that  he  still  pursued  with  enthusiasm  was  geology, 
and  there  was  an  added  reason  now  for  that.  His 


HERBERT  HOOVER  153 

first  day  in  the  laboratory  that  year  had  intro 
duced  him  to  a  young  freshman,  a  genuine  sort  of 
girl  with  no  nonsense  about  her,  who  seemed  to 
have  a  real  enthusiasm  for  the  work.  He  had 
never  cared  much  for  girls ;  Roble  Hall  had  never 
heard  the  sound  of  his  mandolin  through  the  twi 
light,  nor  had  he  been  seen  wandering  beneath  the 
moonlit  arches  of  the  Quad  with  a  white  blouse 
beside  him.  He  thought  of  girls  as  he  did  of  men : 
they  were  citizens  of  Stanford  as  they  had  been 
citizens  of  the  Quaker  villages  of  his  childhood. 
There  had  been  times  when  he  grinned  at  their 
bloomers,  at  their  preposterously  wide  sleeves  and 
tight-laced  waists.  He  had  watched  with  amuse 
ment  their  campaigns  to  capture  the  attention  of 
football  heroes  and  popular  queeners,  and  he  had 
longed  to  be  able  to  help  a  few  in  a  brave  fight  to 
get  through  Stanford  against  heavy  odds.  But 
he  hadn't  bothered  about  them  much.  Oh,  a 
wandering  fancy  or  two,  too  shy  to  make  a  win 
ning  campaign  for  its  object.  But  this  girl  was 
different.  She  seemed  a  thoroughly  good  sort, 
the  kind  of  girl  it  would  be  mighty  fine  to  know. 

"Who  's  the  girl  in  the  Lab  this  morning  ? "  he 
asked  casually,  adjusting  his  microscope.  The 
man  next  him  lifted  a  blank  look  that  melted  into 
amusement. 

"Which  one!" 

Sure  enough,  there  were  several  girls  there! 


154  THE  MAKING  OF 

"The  new  one,  of  course.  I  know  the  others. 
Big  gray  eyes — soft  hair — over  there  by  the  win 
dow.'' 

"That  '&  Lou  Henry.  From  Monterey.  I 
think  her  father  's  a  banker  down  there. " 

"Oh!     Thanks. " 

She  walked  easily,  as  gracefully  unconscious  of 
her  body  as  an  animal.  Went  in  for  athletics, 
probably.  Something  strong  and  courageous 
about  her,  like  a  young  boy.  But  nothing  bruskly 
masculine.  Impossible  to  imagine  her  astride  a 
bicycle,  wearing  bloomers,  or  standing  with 
stringy  hair  arguing  that  she  was  as  good  as  a 
man.  Must  have  a  real  brain  too,  to  go  in  for 
geology.  Eemarkably  soft  white  hands,  with  a 
good  grip. 

' '  Glad  to  meet  you,  Miss  Henry, ' y  he  said.  Her 
voice  was  pleasant,  too,  and  she  smiled  in  a 
friendly  way,  without  making  eyes  at  a  fellow. 
Not  that  many  girls  did,  at  him.  But  she  was  n't 
the  kind  that  would,  anyway. 

The  next  Saturday,  as  senior  in  charge  of  the 
expedition,  he  took  out  a  crowd  for  a  geological 
survey  of  the  hills.  Usually  the  girls  did  not 
come;  the  pace  was  pretty  strenuous  for  a  girl. 
They  came  with  parties  especially  arranged  for 
them.  But  here  was  Lou  Henry,  matter-of-fact 
and  pleasant,  in  sturdy  walking-shoes,  a  short 
skirt,  and  a  sweater.  There  was  a  red  bow  under 


HERBERT  HOOVER  155 

the  broad  white  collar  of  her  blouse,  and  a  little 
cap  on  her  head. 

Her  presence  made  rather  for  constraint  at 
first.  A  girl  always  did.  Introduced  an  alien 
element,  somehow,  into  the  free-and-easy  compan 
ionship  of  himself  and  men  like  Wilson  and  Mit 
chell,  who  forgot  everything  else  in  their  absorp 
tion  in  rock  formations.  You  had  to  think  about 
a  girl,  be  polite  to  her,  help  her  over  fences  and 
pull  her  up  steep  places.  She  expected  a  certain 
amount  of  attention,  of  course.  And  you  hadn't 
any  to  spare  when  you  were  after  rocks.  Well,  it 
could  n  't  be  helped,  and  she  was  an  extremely  nice 
girl,  at  that. 

They  crossed  the  wide  waste  spaces  of  the 
campus  where  the  old  paddocks  had  been,  and 
came  to  the  ranch  fence.  Should  he  climb  to  the 
top  of  it  and  help  her  from  there,  or  get  over  on 
the  other  side  and  lift  her  down?  Annoying  busi 
ness,  a  girl's  climbing  a  fence;  they  made  such  a 
fuss  about  it.  But  it  was  built  too  low  for  her  to 
crawl  under. 

"Miss  Henry,"  said  he  politely,  offering  his 
hand.  But  she  had  not  seen  it.  She  had  laid  her 
own  palm  on  the  top  hoard,  and  lightly,  in  a 
matter-of-course  manner,  had  vaulted  the  fence. 
She  was  going  on,  blithely  unconscious  of  the  pro 
found  sensation  behind  her.  Never  before  had 
anyone  vaulted  fences  on  these  expeditions. 


156  THE  MAKING  OF 

Could  he  do  it  ?  He  had  to  do  it.  Let  himself  be 
beaten  by  a  girl?  Impossible!  But  what  depths 
of  chagrin  if  he  tried  and  failed ! 

The  thing  was  over  in  a  moment.  He  put  his 
hand  on  the  fence,  drew  a  deep  breath,  and  went 
safely  over.  One  by  one,  behind  him,  the  others 
followed  like  sheep.  Lou  Henry,  scanning  the 
hillside,  remained  oblivious.  It  seemed  that  she 
always  vaulted  fences  and  expected  others  to  do 
the  same.  What  a  girl ! 

The  atmosphere  of  awed  respect  that  sur 
rounded  her  became  a  friendly  comradeship  before 
the  group  turned  homeward  under  the  sunset- 
colored  sky.  She  was  so  unaffected,  so  friendly, 
that  she  no  longer  seemed  a  girl  on  their  hands. 
Yet  she  was  not  in  the  least  masculine.  Nothing 
rough-and-ready  about  her.  Not  a  person  to  take 
liberties  with.  A  self-respecting,  clear-eyed, 
dauntless  sort  of  comrade.  A  thoroughly  good 
fellow.  You  could  depend  on  a  girl  like  that. 

"Lou  Henry  's  all  right, "  they  said  in  their 
rooms  at  Enema.  He  said  nothing,  but  the 
thought  ran  on  in  his  mind,  paralleling  the  stream 
of  his  work,  as  manager  of  the  student  body  and 
Stanford  athletics.  A  swarm  of  details  shot 
through  with  intrigue  surrounded  him.  He  was 
the  center  of  a  hundred  radiating  threads.  His 
days  went  in  figuring  bills,  making  out  accounts, 
signing  vouchers  and  checks,  being  interviewed  by 


HERBERT  HOOVER  157 

many  men  seeking  favors.  In  the  evenings  he 
listened  to  complaints  and  pleas  and  rumors,  and 
learned  to  probe  the  most  enticing  bait  with  a  wary 
concern  for  concealed  hooks.  But  he  missed  no 
geology  classes,  and  Dr.  Branner  smiled  at  his 
enthusiasm  for  taking  the  freshmen  on  Saturday 
afternoon  expeditions. 

She  was  a  girl  in  a  thousand,  all  right.  A  girl 
any  man  might  be  eager  to  win.  It  would  be  years 
before  he  was  in  a  position  to  marry  a  girl  like 
that.  Even  if  he  wanted  to.  A  serious  thing, 
this  marrying  business.  Many  a  man  had  been 
crippled  in  his  career  by  it.  A  man  gave  up  a  lot 
when  he  gave  up  his  freedom  and  shouldered  the 
responsibilities  of  being  married.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  right  sort  of  girl  sometimes  made  a 
man.  She  was  the  right  sort,  no  question  about 
that.  Oh,  what  was  the  use  f  What  chance  did  he 
stand,  anyway,  virtually  penniless,  with  his  living 
to  make,  while  she  could  probably  take  her  choice 
of  a  dozen  men? 

In  the  midnight  silence  there  came  a  voice  at 
the  foot  of  the  bed. 

"Bert !  The  baseball  team  's  just  voted  to  play 
Santa  Rosa  and  pocket  the  receipts. " 

"Yeh?     Tell  me  about  it." 

Undeniable  evidence.  Another  athletic  scandal 
threatening  Stanford.  He  pulled  on  his  trousers, 
buttoned  a  coat  around  his  collarless  neck,  and 


158  THE  MAKING  OF 

hurried  to  Dr.  Angell,  the  chairman  of  the  faculty 
committee  on  athletics. 

His  pebbles  on  the  dark  window-pane  brought 
out  a  sleepy  head.  ' '  Who  is  it  ? " 

«  Me— Hoover. " 

"Come  on  up." 

He  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed  and  told  the  story. 
' '  Give  me  a  letter  to  that  bunch,  will  you  ?  I  don 't 
want  to  appear  in  it,  you  understand.  Tell  'em 
you  Ve  heard  a  rumor,  but  you  don't  believe  it, 
because  if  they  do  such  a  thing  they  '11  be  barred 
as  professionals  from  ever  playing  for  Stanford 
again.  They  know  it  already,  of  course.  But  the 
letter  will  throw  some  sense  into  their  two-by-four 
minds." 

He  crawled  back  between  the  sheets  at  four  in 
the  morning,  that  disaster  averted.  What  did  it 
matter  if  his  German  grammar  lay  neglected  on  a 
table  piled  with  letters  and  vouchers?  He  was 
doing  something  for  Stanford. 

At  the  end  of  the  semester  he  was  conditioned  in 
chemistry,  and  he  had  flunked  in  German.  Eng 
lish  1  B  still  hung  about  his  neck  relentlessly.  He 
registered  for  nineteen  hours  and  faced  them 
under  the  pressure  of  spring  activities. 

The  days  went  past  like  the  rise  and  dip  of  tele 
phone  wires  beside  an  express  train.  There  was 
so  much  to  do,  and  so  little  time  in  which  to  do 
it.  The  weeks  were  hurling  him  forward  to  the 


HERBERT  HOOVER  159 

day  when  Stanford  and  all  that  it  meant  would 
be  behind  him.  The  last  of  his  money  was  going, 
but  he  could  not  waste  time  in  earning  more.  He 
could  do  that  later.  Now  he  wanted  all  of  Stan 
ford  that  he  could  get— friendly  talks  with  Dr. 
Branner,  hours  with  the  boys  he  cared  for,  walks 
in  the  hills  with  Lou  Henry,  evenings  at  concerts 
in  the  old  chapel. 

The  hills  around  Stanford  were  green  once  more 
from  the  winter  rains,  the  pastures  gorgeous  with 
poppies  and  lupin.  Meadow-larks  sang  from  the 
blossoming  fields  and  towhees  were  nesting  in  the 
clumps  of  wild  clematis  and  lilac  through  which 
he  pushed,  breaking  a  path  for  Lou  Henry  to  fol 
low  the  dip  of  a  limestone  stratum.  Her  cheeks 
were  flushed  from  climbing,  her  quick  breath 
fluttered  the  red  tie  beneath  her  white  collar,  but 
she  did  not  ask  for  help.  When  a  slashing  branch 
whipped  out  a  red  mark  across  her  cheek  she  did 
not  murmur.  And  she  was  genuinely  interested 
in  geology. 

They  chipped  off  specimens  of  protruding  rocks 
with  their  hammers  and  sat  on  ledges  in  the  sun 
shine  examining  them,  while  he  told  her  what  they 
meant.  There  was  so  much  meaning  in  a  rock. 
It  told  of  cataclysms  that  racked  the  world  before 
man  climbed  from  the  slime  to  stand  upright  in  a 
world  of  gigantic  ferns  and  monster  winged  liz 
ards.  It  showed  the  slow  erosion  of  centuries,  the 


160  THE  MAKING  OF 

ceaseless  flux  and  change  of  the  earth  itself,  that 
seems  so  changeless  and  solid.  It  led  to  wider 
thoughts.  Life.  The  meaning  and  value  of  it. 
The  purpose  of  existence.  Ambitions.  Ideals. 
Dreams. 

Lou  Henry  was  not  studying  geology  simply  as 
a  pastime.  She  meant  to  do  something  with  it. 
She  did  not  know  exactly  what  it  would  be;  she 
was  only  a  freshman;  there  were  three  years  of 
Stanford  before  her  yet.  But  she  meant  to  use 
her  knowledge.  That  was  the  only  reason  for 
getting  it,  was  n  't  it  1  She  wanted  her  life  to 
count  for  something.  It  was  so  easy  for  a  girl  to 
waste  her  life.  So  much  idleness  and  careless 
squandering  of  time  and  energies.  She  liked  a 
good  time,  too.  But  a  life  that  was  all  good  times 
would  bore  her  awfully.  Yes,  of  course,  if  one 
married,  that  was  different.  But  she  did  not 
intend  to  be  married, — not  for  a  long  while  yet, 
anyway.  She  was  going  to  finish  college  first  and 
then — well,  do  something  worth  while  with  what 
she  had  learned.  She  was  talking  a  lot  about  her 
self,  was  n 't  she  ?  What  did  he  intend  to  do  ? 

It  was  surprising  how  easy  it  was  to  talk  to  a 
girl  like  that.  She  was  not  like  a  girl,  and  yet 
she  was  all  girl.  Plans,  hopes,  ideals  that  he  had 
hardly  formed  in  himself,  that  certainly  he  had 
never  expected  to  express  in  words,  were  not  hard 
to  tell  her.  Things  like  being  kind,  of  being  some 


HERBERT  HOOVER  161 

service  in  the  world.  A  man  like  Senator  Stan 
ford,  now.  That  was  a  real  success.  Not  because 
he  had  money,  but  because  of  the  way  he  spent  it. 
Of  course  it  would  be  a  hard  pull  at  first.  Lind- 
gren  had  been  very  kind,  had  praised  him  and  his 
work.  Friends  like  that  helped  a  lot.  He  was  n't 
afraid ;  he  'd  make  a  success  somehow.  It  might 
take  years,  you  know.  You  never  can  tell— 

The  last  week  was  close  upon  the  Pioneers.  As 
by  a  miracle,  the  millstone  of  English  1  B  had 
fallen  from  his  neck.  Professor  Smith  had  had  a 
sudden  idea : 

"Here,  Hoover,  stop  worrying  about  English. 
Take  this  paper  you  handed  in  to  me  last  month, 
fix  the  spelling  and  get  attention  on  the  strength 
of  it.  It  proves  you  can  express  yourself  well  in 
written  English,  if  that  's  what  they  're  after. " 

Now  that  pestiferous  thing  was  behind  him. 
Yet  life  was  not  unclouded  these  last  sweet  days 
of  May.  There  were  tears  behind  the  gaiety  of 
those  final  days  under  the  old  arches  of  the  Quad. 
A  double  melancholy  hung  about  them,  sadness  for 
those  who  were  departing,  and  sadness  for  the 
loved  university.  The  suit  brought  by  the  Gov 
ernment  against  the  Stanford  estate  was  reaching 
the  end  of  their  last  hope;  the  life  of  their  uni 
versity  hung  now  upon  the  final  decision  soon  to 
be  given  by  the  Supreme  Court.  It  might  be  that 
the  Pioneers,  the  first  class  to  go  out  into  the 


162  THE  MAKING  OF 

world    from    those    doors,    would    be    the    last. 

He  had  given  his  best  to  Stanford  in  return  for 
all  that  it  had  given  him.  The  student-body 
affairs  were  organized  now,  its  activities  coordi 
nated  ;  athletics  had  been  given  a  new  tradition  of 
honorable  ideals  as  well  as  glorious  victories; 
there  was  a  commendable  balance  to  be  left  in  the 
treasury.  He  had  been  a  vital  part  of  the  strug 
gle  to  create  his  university,  building  toward  a 
future  which  might  never  be,  but  building  strongly 
nevertheless.  His  work  was  done,  ready  perhaps 
to  pass  on  to  other  hands  down  through  the  years, 
doomed  perhaps  to  be  wiped  out.  At  least  he  had 
done  his  best. 

"Men  should  make  up  their  minds  to  be  forgot 
ten,  and  look  about  them,  or  within  them,  for  some 
higher  motive  in  what  they  do  than  the  approba 
tion  of  man,  which  is  fame, — namely,  their  duty. 
They  should  be  constantly  and  quietly  at  work, 
each  in  his  sphere,  regardless  of  effects,  and  leav 
ing  their  fame  to  take  care  of  itself. "  He  had 
found  that,  somewhere,  in  something  Longfellow 
wrote;  he  liked  it.  There  was  in  it  an  echo  of 
the  spirit  of  West  Branch  and  Newberg;  it  was 
the  kind  of  thing  Grandmother  Minthorn  might 
have  said,  or  Uncle  John ;  yet  it  included  his  new 
vision  of  a  world  where  even  mountains  decayed 
through  the  centuries  and  the  generations  of  men 
were  like  the  waves  of  a  sea. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  163 

It  was  good,  though,  to  have  the  affectionate 
approval  of  men  like  Dr.  Jordan  and  Dr.  Branner 
and  Mr.  Lindgren,  friends  like  Kimball  and  Col 
lins  and  Wilbur  and  Wilson.  He  had  done  a  good 
job;  it  was  something  to  remember  when  he  was 
with  Lou  Henry.  He  might  not  be  able  to  lend 
her  a  varsity  sweater,  honored  by  great  deeds  on 
an  embattled  field,  but  he  was  the  man  who  man 
aged  the  man  who  did  lend  it  to  her.  Lou  Henry 
was  linked  in  his  mind  with  Stanford ;  it  was 
there  he  had  met  and  grown  to  know  her,  and  his 
fear  for  Stanford's  threatened  future  was  double- 
edged;  he  wished  to  think  of  her  there  when  he 
was  gone. 

Leaving  Stanford  so  soon.  Reaching  the  end  of 
the  long  purpose  to  have  a  university  education. 
Letting  go  finally  the  slender  hold  of  his  father's 
hand,  stretched  beyond  the  grave  to  help  him. 
Absolutely  on  his  own  now.  His  pockets  quite 
empty,  and  nothing  in  his  hands  but  his  A.B. 
degree  in  geology  and  the  offer  of  a  temporary 
job  with  Lindgren.  Not  that  he  was  afraid;  he 
would  pull  through  somehow.  He  would  not  have 
sold  the  work  of  that  last  year  in  Stanford  for  any 
money.  Still,  there  was  the  senior  ball,  and  he 
wanted  to  go.  Well,  he  could  borrow  the  money 
he  needed. 

His  last  dollar  paid  for  his  fare  to  San  Fran 
cisco  on  the  day  of  Mrs.  Stanford 's  reception.  He 


164  THE  MAKING  OF 

could  not  miss  the  opening  of  the  big  house  on 
California  Street  to  the  departing  class  that  Sen 
ator  Stanford  had  welcomed  on  that  long-past  day 
in  the  Quad.  It  was  a  rite,  a  service  to  the  last 
of  the  Pioneers,  perhaps  to  the  last  class  of  Stan 
ford.  He  moved  through  the  large  rooms,  in  the 
soft  music  and  the  murmur  of  low  voices  and 
silken  trains,  listened  to  Mrs.  Stanford's  talk  to 
the  boys  and  girls  whom  she  and  the  senator  had 
adopted  in  memory  of  the  boy  whose  marble  bust 
stood  in  the  big  hall. 

Then  he  hastened  to  meet  a  friend  who  might 
have  some  money.  It  was  a  close  call,  for  the 
chosen  rescuer  had  only  fifteen  dollars. 

1 1  Give  me  seven  and  a  half,  will  you  ?  I  Ve  got 
to  go  to  the  senior  ball." 

"Well,  I  should  say  so,  Hoover!  Here  you 
are."  The  fifteen  half-dollars  clinked  into  his 
palm.  Not  much,  but  his  bills  were  paid;  Lind- 
gren  would  advance  his  expenses  to  the  Sierras. 

He  was  in  the  crowd  that  stood  bareheaded 
around  the  old  tree  half-way  between  Encina  and 
Eoble  Hall,  while  the  bronze  tablet  was  unveiled 
that  formally  christened  the  Ninety-five  Oak,  a 
class  legacy  to  sweethearts  coming  after  them  who 
would  sit  in  the  moonlight  under  those  spreading 
branches.  That  was  one  thing  he  M  missed  in 
Stanford,  he  thought,  smiling,  while  the  last  will 
and  testament  of  '95  was  solemnly  read.  Then, 


HERBERT  HOOVER  165 

all  together,  they  sang  the  song  of  the  early  days 
they  all  remembered: 

"Dear  chum  of  mine,  do  you  recall 

When  college  had  begun 
The  gladness  of  that  glorious  fall 

And  how  we  spent  the  mon? 
The  days  of  scrapes,  the  days  of  grapes, 

The  days  of  '91- 

"Dear  Class  of  '95,  when  all 

The  four  years  thread  is  spun, 
The  freshman  follies  we  recall 

We  would  not  have  undone; 
Those  days  when  youth  came  seeking  truth, 

The  days  of  '91." 

Now  for  the  senior  ball!  He  had  new  shoes 
for  the  occasion;  he  carefully  brushed  his  best 
suit  and  thought  earnestly  about  his  neckties,  try 
ing  one  and  then  another  with  a  critical  eye  to  the 
effect,  After  he  had  settled  the  coat  in  place  on 
his  broad  shoulders  he  stood  a  long  time  before 
the  mirror,  anxious  and  nervous.  Lou  Henry 
would  no  doubt  wear  some  light,  fluffy,  collarless 
gown,  and  she  was  a  girl  besieged  with  partners. 
She  danced  well,  too.  After  all,  he  had  been  stu 
dent-body  treasurer  and  a  power  in  college  politics. 

Violin  strings  were  already  twanging  under 
tuning  thumbs,  and  the  first  thin  crowd  was  shift 
ing  about  under  the  lights  of  Encina  Gymnasium 


166  THE  MAKING  OF 

when  they  arrived.  An  orchestra  had  been 
brought  from  San  Francisco,  and  all  day  the  girls 
and  a  few  boys  had  been  massing  pepper  boughs 
and  bamboo  about  the  gym  apparatus  against  the 
walls.  The  large  bare  room  was  festive  with  the 
trailing  leaves  and  scarlet  berries.  These  unac 
customed  decorations,  the  lights,  the  floor  slippery 
with  shaved  candle-wax,  gave  a  formal,  dressed-up 
air  to  the  occasion.  A  little  awkward  at  first. 
And  here  and  there  a  chap  appeared  proudly  in 
evening  dress.  The  grand  march  was  forming. 

Then  the  music,  and  the  dancing,  and  Lou  Henry 
gay  and  sweet  in  his  arms.  Swirling  couples  all 
about  them,  kaleidoscope  of  color  and  light  and 
motion.  The  waltz — one,  two,  skip!  one,  two, 
skip!  And  the  careful  reverse,  guarding  Her 
from  colliding  couples  with  a  stiff  elbow.  Laugh 
ing  up  at  him,  quite  serene  and  sure  that  he  danced 
well,  following  his  lead  perfectly  and  yet  in  some 
obscure  way  guiding  him,  too.  And  how  charm 
ingly  she  did  the  gay  prancing  steps  of  the  five- 
step  polka!  There  were  eyes  upon  them;  all  the 
world  saw  that  they  were  dancing  together,  and 
wondered  a  bit  about  it.  What !  Lou  Henry  and 
Bert  Hoover?  And  then  she  was  swept  from  him 
by  clamoring  partners,  and  he  was  left  alone 
against  the  wall,  his  hands  in  his  pockets.  Oh,  of 
course!  He  must  do  his  duty  and  dance  with 
some  one  else.  But  still  their  eyes  met,  now  and 


HERBERT  HOOVER  167 

then,   through   the   circling  maze,  and  his   next 
dance  with  her  was  coming  soon. 

The  gay,  sweet,  happy  hours!  Light-hearted 
Time  going  by  on  dancing  feet !  Music  and  color 
and  laughter  and  light  beneath  the  drooping  pep 
per  boughs  jeweled  with  berries.  The  senior  ball 
of  '95,  gliding  with  the  glamour  of  pomp  and  fash 
ion  the  last  days  of  the  Pioneers.  This  was  the 
sunset  glory  over  the  end  of  the  little  world  he 
had  conquered ;  for  he  was  the  man  who  had  made 
the  student-body,  and  he  was  the  man  for  whom 
there  was  understanding  and  faith  in  Lou  Henry's 
gray  eyes. 

They  met  again  the  next  evening  in  the  old 
Quad,  where  for  the  last  time  the  Pioneers  were 
together.  The  Quad  was  rimmed  with  rosy  lan 
terns  under  the  deep-blue  sky,  little  balloons  of 
colored  light  swayed  among  the  palms.  To-mor 
row  morning  in  the  big  gymnasium  beneath  the 
wilted  pepper  boughs  he  would  stand  up  to  take 
from  Dr.  Jordan's  hand  the  honor  of  his  A.B. 
degree.  To-morrow  he  would  go  to  fight  for  his 
place  in  the  world  outside.  To-night  was  his  fare 
well  to  Stanford. 

All  the  faces  he  knew  were  there,  coming  and 
going  in  the  circling  crowd  whose  feet  sounded 
upon  the  asphalt.  Upon  a  screen  against  the 
eastern  tower  a  magic  lantern  cast  colored  pic 
tures.  The  music  of  the  band,  rising  toward  the 


168  HERBERT  HOOVER 

stars,  shed  upon  them  like  dew  a  sensation  of 
sadness,  of  immeasurable  regrets  and  longing. 

The  days  of  Auld  Lang  Syne,  my  dear, 
The  days  of  Auld  Lang  Syne, 
We  '11  tak  a  cup  o '  kindness  yet 
For  the  days  of  Auld  Lang  Syne. 

Lou  Henry,  the  freshman,  in  her  white  dress, 
walked  through  the  rosy-lighted  arches,  listening 
to  a  song  that  had  little  meaning  for  her  heart. 
Life  in  Stanford  was  beginning  for  her.  Three 
years  were  before  her  there,  while  he  was  going 
out  to — who  knew  what  he  could  make  of  those 
three  years  1 

Views  of  the  college  buildings  now  appeared  on 
the  screen.  The  music  had  changed  its  key,  the 
clear-throated  horns  were  singing,  "Then  you  '11 
remember  me." 

"Will  you?" 

"Will  I—?" 

The  words  choked  a  little.  "Will  you  remem 
ber  me?" 

Her  eyes  were  quite  clear  and  frank,  meeting 
his.  i  i  Of  course  I  shall  remember  you. ' '  It  was 
all  he  could  ask  or  she  could  promise.  The  untried 
years  were  before  them  both. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ON  a  late  summer  evening  three  months  after 
the  memorable  Commencement  Day  Herbert 
Hoover,  sunburned  and  dusty,  urged  a  weary  pony 
on  a  road  that  curved  among  the  slopes  of  the 
Sierras.  Around  him  the  green  sea  of  pines 
swept  downward  into  purple-shadowed  valleys 
and  surged  upward  again  in  waves  against  rocky 
peaks  still  bright  with  sunshine.  The  chill  of 
approaching  night  had  already  conquered  the 
warmth  of  the  day  when  the  pony,  scenting  on  the 
crisp  air  the  promise  of  a  cozy  stable  and  supper, 
pricked  up  his  ears  and  went  forward  eagerly.  A 
turn  in  the  road  disclosed  a  huddle  of  weathered 
barns  and  beyond  it  a  large  newly  painted  ranch- 
house  where  windows  were  oblongs  of  yellow 
lamplight. 

The  pony,  left  beside  the  road,  sniffed  the  air 
hungrily  and  gazed  with  appealing  eyes  after  his 
rider,  who  walked  stiff -muscled  up  the  path  and 
knocked  at  the  front  door.  There  was  a  sound 
of  voices  inside,  a  faint  clatter  of  dishes,  the  scrape 
of  a  pushed-back  chair.  Footsteps  approached 
the  door  and  it  opened  grudgingly.  In  the  aper- 

169 


170  THE  MAKING  OF 

ture  a  squarely  built,  hard-faced  farmer's  wife 
regarded  him  for  a  moment.  "What  do  you 
want  I ' ' 

He  was  tired,  and  the  greeting  was  not  encour 
aging.  He  explained  briefly  that  he  would  like 
to  get  some  supper  and  lodging  for  the  night  for 
himself  and  his— 

"We  don't  keep  tramps,"  she  interrupted,  and 
a  closing  door  would  have  ended  discussion. 
But  five  miles  lay  between  him  and  the  next  farm 
house,  and  hunger,  sharpened  by  the  warm  odor  of 
food  that  poured  through  the  narrowing  crack, 
prodded  the  wayfarer  to  unsuspected  powers  of 
expression. 

"Madame,"  he  said  swiftly,  "please  give  me  a 
moment  in  which  to  explain.  I  assure  you  that 
I—" 

"I  don't  want  to  buy  anything,  either,"  she 
said  with  finality.  But  his  foot  was  on  the 
threshold  and  his  toe  resisted  the  pressure  of  the 
door.  He  continued  to  talk: 

"I  'm  not  a  tramp,  and  I  'm  not  a  book  agent 
or  a  sewing-machine  agent.  I  have  n  't  anything 
to  sell.  I  only  want  something  to  eat  and  a  place 
to  sleep  and  I  'm  willing  to  pay  for  them.  I  've 
ridden  twenty-five  miles  to-day  over  the  moun 
tains  and  my  pony  is  tired.  I  assure  you  I  am  a 
thoroughly  respectable  person,  a  geologist  with 
the  United  States  Geological  Survey.  Surely  you 


HERBERT  HOOVER  171 

can  give  me  and  my  pony  some  kind  of  shelter  for 
the  night.  I  '11  be  glad  to  pay  for  it, ' '  he  repeated. 

"We  don't  keep  boarders,  either,  so  far  as  that 
goes,"  she  replied  coldly,  and  added  after  a  mo 
ment's  reluctance:  "Well,  I  guess  we  can  give 
you  something  to  eat  in  the  kitchen,  and  you  can 
sleep  in  the  barn. ' ' 

"Thank  you,"  he  said  and  went  furiously  down 
the  path.  But  he  was  young  enough  to  grin  at 
the  situation  while  he  led  the  pony  around  the 
house,  unsaddled  him,  and  let  him  drink  at  the 
watering-trough  in  the  barn-yard.  There  was  an 
empty  stall  in  the  barn,  and  hay  in  the  mow.  In 
vestigation  revealed  a  sack  of  bran  and  a  sheaf 
of  unthreshed  oats.  He  left  the  pony  munching 
contentedly,  washed  his  face  and  hands  at  the 
pump,  and  followed  a  path  to  the  back  porch.  The 
fat  cook  in  a  soiled  apron  received  him  in  the 
large  kitchen  and  while  she  fried  potatoes  warmed 
on  the  wood-stove  she  put  a  loaf  of  bread,  a  dish 
of  butter,  and  a  pitcher  of  milk  on  the  red-oilcloth 
covered  table  beside  the  oil  lamp. 

"I  guess  you've  come  a  long  ways,"  she 
observed. 

"Yes,  I  Ve  been  traveling  some  time.  You  Ve 
got  a  fine  big  house  here,  the  largest  I  've  seen  in 
the  mountains,"  he  answered.  The  cook  warmed 
to  his  smile.  She  began  to  talk,  and  there  was 
an  element  of  self-interest  in  his  genuinely 


172  THE  MAKING  OF 

friendly  encouragement  of  her  conversation.  She 
sliced  another  potato  into  the  frying-pan,  brought 
out  some  eggs  from  the  pantry,  and  by  the  time 
the  piles  of  food  had  disappeared  before  his 
onslaught  she  was  fetching  preserves  and  layer- 
cake  to  lay  before  him.  Meanwhile  she  poured 
forth  confidences,  gossip,  and  opinion.  The  house 
was  a  new  one,  she  said,  and  it  sure  was  grand,  but 
lots  of  work  to  take  care  of,  especially  since  the 
girls  had  come  home  from  school  with  all  sorts  of 
notions.  They  used  to  be  as  common  every-day 
folks  as  anybody  in  the  mountains,  but  since  the 
old  man  had  sold  his  water-rights  and  moved  into 
this  grand  big  house  you  'd  think  sometimes  the 
earth  wasn't  good  enough  for  'em.  Silk  dresses 
was  nothing  to  them  nowadays,  and  as  for  the 
ironing!  And  that  woman  that  used  to  do  the 
wash  on  Mondays  like  anybody  else,  now  would  n't 
so  much  as  touch  her  hand  to  the  rinse-water. 
The  cook  was  in  a  good  rnind  to  leave  any  minute, 
especially  since  the  girls  had  come  home.  They  'd 
gone  to  Miss  Nash's  Seminary  at  Carson. 
"  Folks  say  it  's  the  finest  seminary  in  the  world 
west  of  the  Carson  River  and  east  of  Lake  Tahoe, 
and  they  have  come  back  much  educated,"  she 
explained. 

He  poured  another  glass  of  milk  and  attacked 
the  preserves,  speaking  only  enough  to  keep  her 
happily  talking.  A  grand  opportunity  to  observe 


HERBERT  HOOVER  173 

the  effect  of  sudden  riches,  he  thought,  his  face 
sober  and  attentive  while  he  grinned  inwardly. 
And  he  perceived  that  he  was  not  the  only  one 
in  the  house  who  thought  so,  for,  while  he  ate, 
the  kitchen  door  was  opened  gently  by  an  unseen 
hand  and  from  the  parlor  on  the  other  side  of  the 
dining-room  came  the  tones  of  a  parlor  organ  on 
which  some  one  played  "Home,  Sweet  Home" 
with  impressive  technic.  Obviously  a  benefit  con 
cert  intended  for  him.  It  ended  in  two  long- 
drawn  chords,  and  a  moment  later  the  musician 
appeared  and  crossed  the  dining-room  with  care 
fully  trained  grace. 

She  was  a  pretty  girl,  who  would  have  been 
prettier  if  she  had  not  been  so  well  taught  to  be 
conscious  of  her  social  position.  She  paused  in 
the  kitchen  doorway  and  her  eyes  rested  with 
hauteur  upon  the  young  man  in  his  travel-stained 
clothes  before  she  turned  to  the  cook  and  gave 
orders  for  breakfast  in  a  cool  and  modulated 
voice.  Then  she  looked  at  him  again  with  more 
kindliness  and  she  spoke  without  lessening  the 
social  distance  between  them. 

"Has  my  cook  given  you  a  good  supper ?" 

"Yes,  thank  you,"  he  rose  to  reply. 

"Where  are  you  from?" 

"From  Sierra  Valley, "  he  answered  humbly. 
Her  eyes  became  still  more  perfectly  those  of  a 
Lady  Bountiful. 


174  THE  MAKING  OF 

"  Would  you  like  to  see  our  house  ?" 

"Oh,  I  should  like  it  so  much!" 

She  led  him  through  the  dining-room,  display 
ing  to  his  gaze  real  cut-glass  on  the  sideboard; 
she  showed  him  the  library  with  its  red  walls  and 
carpet  and  a  bookcase  nearly  filled  with  books, 
many  of  which,  bound  in  half-leather,  were  the 
most  expensive  sold  by  book  agents,  and  then  she 
took  him  into  the  parlor  to  show  him  a  picture  that 
a  friend  of  hers  had  painted  by  hand,  in  oils.  He 
followed  her  dutifully,  cap  in  hand,  listening  with 
out  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  and  he  saw  that  she  was 
probably  a  very  jolly  sort  of  girl  that  would  not 
have  been  bad  company  for  an  evening  if  her 
father  had  not  sold  his  water-rights.  Despite  his 
tramp-like  appearance,  she  was  beginning  to  treat 
him  almost  as  a  fellow  human  being.  He  stood 
before  the  hand-painted  picture,  gazing  at  it,  and 
feeling  that  he  must  say  something  he  remarked, 
' ' Your  house  was  painted  brown  then,  I  see." 

' ' Our  house?     Brown?" 

" Is  n't  it  your  house  that  I  see  in  the  picture?" 

He  knew  at  once  that  he  had  cast  himself  back 
into  the  depths.  She  looked  at  him  a  moment 
with  cold  eyes  and  said,  "That  is  a  picture  of  the 
Palisades  of  Tahoe."  He  could  not  reply.  It 
had  seemed  to  him  that  he  saw  quite  distinctly 
on  the  canvas  the  house  and  the  barn  and  a  few 
trees.  His  hostess  dismissed  him  with  chilly 


HERBERT  HOOVER  175 

courtesy  at  the  front  door,  and  finding  his  way  to 
the  barn  he  rolled  himself  in  his  saddle-blanket 
and  fell  asleep  in  the  hay,  his  last  impression  of 
the  pale  moonlight  streaming  through  the  hay 
mow  door  carrying  the  strains  of  the  Moonlight 
Sonata  through  his  dreams  of  Stanford. 

A  warm,  rasping  sensation  on  his  cheek  awoke 
him  in  the  first  dawn.  The  family  dog  was  lick 
ing  his  face.  He  sat  up  and  seized  the  shaggy 
body,  shaking  it  with  rough  friendliness  while  the 
dog  barked  with  delight.  "What  do  you  think 
you  're  doing,  you  rascal? — being  sympathetic? 
Or  do  you  take  my  red  skin  for  a  beefsteak? 
Chase  yourself,  you  scamp!  Don't  you  see  I  'm 
ringing  for  my  valet?"  He  took  off  his  shoes  to 
shake  the  hayseed  from  them,  ran  a  hand  through 
his  hair  and  put  on  his  cap.  Being  struck  by  a 
sudden  thought,  he  rummaged  the  hay-mow  for 
hens '  nests,  finding  six  eggs,  which  he  ate  raw  for 
breakfast.  Then  he  went  downstairs  to  saddle 
the  pony,  and  with  a  final  pat  for  the  dog  he  swung 
into  the  saddle  and  rode  away  from  the  sleeping 
house. 

"It  's  all  in  the  life  of  a  geologist, "  he  said, 
whistling  as  he  went,  and  his  breath  curled  like 
smoke  in  the  cold  pine-scented  air.  The  mountain 
peaks  were  black  against  the  clear  green  sky ;  light 
was  spreading  upward  from  the  hidden  west  and 
a  few  stars  still  glimmered  faintly  over  the  eastern 


176  THE  MAKING  OF 

forests.     Altogether,  it  was  a  pretty  good  world 
to  be  alive  in. 

That  day  he  made  the  ascent  of  Slide  Mountain, 
eleven  thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  From  its 
summit  he  looked  upon  forty  miles  of  rugged 
peaks  standing  in  vast  and  noble  simplicity  above 
the  waters  of  Lake  Tahoe  that  reflected  as  in  a 
mirror  the  gaunt  precipices  standing  like  but 
tresses  from  a  wall,  their  gorges  purple-shadowed 
and  their  granite  summits  lost  in  curling  mists. 
A  storm  was  gathering  from  the  west  and  stand 
ing  in  the  sunlight  he  watched  the  onslaught  of 
the  thunder-rolling  clouds  against  the  battlements 
and  saw  the  white  lightning  strike  and  strike 
again,  while  in  the  upper  air  the  mountains 
launched  their  eastern  winds  and  tore  the  clouds 
into  ragged  masses  and  downward-fleeing  columns. 
Again  in  the  lower  valleys  they  re-formed,  heavy 
with  snow,  and  rolling  upward  resistlessly  they 
buried  turret  and  pinnacle  in  a  vast  whorl  of 
storm  from  which  escaping  shreds  of  mist  circled 
the  crags  and  clung  trembling  in  the  pine-tops 
below.  Lightning  and  thunder  and  the  desert 
winds  fought  in  that  turmoil  and  through  the  scat 
tered  battalions  of  the  clouds  Lake  Tahoe,  its  clear 
pictures  blotted  out  by  the  shadow  of  the  battle, 
looked  upward  like  a  dull  gray  eye.  The  granite 
peaks  and  the  winds  from  the  desert  conquered, 
the  clouds  fell  back,  shattered  and  torn  to  mists, 


HERBERT  HOOVER  177 

leaving  their  snow  behind  them  and  from  the 
spoils  the  mountains  unfurled  their  banners  of 
victory.  Beneath  the  sunny  sky  each  mighty  peak 
gave  to  the  winds  a  snowy  streamer  a  mile  in 
length,  blowing  like  a  flag  from  a  mast-head. 

This  was  the  country  he  knew  and  loved,  this 
land  of  gigantic  granite  heights  where  the  un 
leashed  elements  fought  above  the  forests  of  hun 
dred-foot  pines.  The  beauty  of  these  wild  and 
naked  peaks  struck  from  the  hard  practicality  of 
his  own  nature  a  spark  of  poetry,  and  sitting  on 
his  saddle-bags  beside  a  camp-fire  he  wrote  letters 
which  mingled  with  accurate  figures  of  altitude 
and  size  descriptions  of  mountains  and  forests  and 
clouds  written  with  a  power  that  surprised  even 
himself.  He  could  never  have  talked  with  such 
command  of  the  picturesque  phrase ;  his  heritage 
of  repression  would  not  have  allowed  him  to  ex 
press  orally  those  emotions  that  lay  within  him 
as  volcanic  fires  lay  beneath  the  granite  of  the 
mountains. 

Two  weeks  later,  in  a  bare  hotel  room  in  Ne 
vada  City,  he  lay  awake  considering  his  plans 
for  the  winter.  Through  the  open  window  came 
the  scent  of  miles  of  forest  wet  with  rain  and  the 
sound  of  the  heavy  boots  and  loud  voices  of  miners 
crossing  the  muddy  street  and  meeting  on  the 
hotel  porch.  The  door  of  the  bar-room  slammed 
and  slammed  again ;  snatches  of  song  and  laugh- 


178  THE  MAKING  OF 

ter  arose;  at  the  hitching-post  a  weary  pony 
pawed  the  mud  and  whickered  restlessly.  This 
was  the  Bret  Harte  country  of  the  old  California 
mining  days,  remembered  now  only  by  the  names 
of  the  little  towns  scattered  along  the  roads  of  the 
foot-hills — You  Bet,  You  be  Dam,  Bed  Dog,  and 
Alpha.  Winter  was  approaching,  the  United 
States  Geological  Survey  was  ending  for  the  sum 
mer,  and  he  must  look  for  work. 

It  had  been  a  profitable  summer.  He  had  had 
an  interesting  variety  of  work  in  the  mountains, 
visiting  mines,  studying  the  succession  of  lavas 
in  the  great  basin,  tracing  gravel  channels  and 
doing  detailed  stadia  topography  at  disputed 
points  by  a  species  of  stadia  methods  originated 
for  the  occasion.  He  had  made  a  representative 
collection  of  Sierra  igneous  rocks  for  Stanford, 
and  Lindgren  had  been  so  well  pleased  with  his 
work  that  he  had  raised  his  salary.  Lindgren 
would  do  everything  possible  to  get  him  a  good 
job  in  the  mines  when  the  survey  ended.  It  would 
have  to  be  a  good  job  or  none  at  all,  for  there  were 
more  common  miners  than  there  were  jobs  for 
them.  Mining  superintendents  were  in  general 
college  men,  and  disposed  to  help  young  fellows. 
Still,  Stanford  was  a  young  university,  and  the 
University  of  California  had  the  advantage  in 
older  prestige.  Stanford's  reputation  in  the  min 
ing  world  was  yet  to  be  established  by  men  like 


HERBERT  HOOVER  179 

himself,  members  of  the  Pioneer  Class,  and  those 
who  would  follow  them.  It  would  be  fine  if  he  and 
Kimball  could  get  jobs  together  in  the  mines.  A 
riotous  outburst  from  the  bar-room  below  awak 
ened  him  as  he  was  falling  asleep,  and  he  grinned 
in  the  darkness. 

"I  Ve  certainly  had  a  fine  chance  to  observe  the 
relative  wickedness  of  mountain  whisky,"  he 
thought.  "That  rs  one  line  in  which  I  haven't 
carried  on  any  original  investigation.  I  can  take 
the  other  fellows'  maps  on  that." 

The  survey  ended  on  October  fifteenth  and  his 
hope  of  getting  a  job  at  something  better  than 
pushing  an  ore-car  died  abruptly,  leaving  a  feeling 
of  sick  discouragement  that  he  concealed  under  a 
cheerful  manner.  Mr.  Lindgren's  efforts  to  place 
him  in  the  mines  had  failed,  and  he  was  left  to  face 
the  implacable  wall  of  filled  jobs.  Superintendent 
after  superintendent  was  sorry,  but  there  was  no 
opening  at  present.  He  swallowed  his  college 
pride  and  tried  to  get  work  as  a  laborer.  He 
stood  in  groups  of  jobless  men  on  the  scarred  hill 
sides  ;  he  interviewed  brusk  foremen  in  the  board 
shacks  that  were  the  mine-offices.  "Nothing  do 
ing,"  they  said.  "We  Ve  got  more  men  than 
jobs." 

He  had  no  money.  His  father's  legacy  and  all 
his  own  efforts  for  four  years  had  gone  into  his 
college  training.  He  must  get  a  job  somehow. 


180  THE  MAKING  OF 

He  must  get  a  foothold  in  the  world.  There  was 
a  girl  in  Stanford  who  expected  him  to  make  good. 

"Buck  up,  old  man!"  said  Kimball,  noting  that 
his  friend  was  even  more  silent  than  usual. 
"You  '11  land  something  all  right. " 

'  *  Sure  I  will, ' '  he  answered  cheerfully.  * '  I  sup 
pose,  "  he  added,  a  satirical  note  creeping  into  his 
quiet  level  tones,  "four  years  of  college  training 
is  invaluable  to  turn  the  joshes  of  the  Cornish 
miners  if  for  nothing  more." 

But  three  days  later  he  greeted  Kimball,  jubi 
lant. 

"There  was  an  unexpected  opening  at  the  Re 
ward  and  I  fell  into  it.  Pushing  a  car  at  two-fifty 
per  day  and  experience.  Not  so  bad,  with  two 
hundred  men  idle  and  everybody  here  prejudiced 
against  college  men." 

The  nights  became  a  delirium  of  aching  muscles 
and  of  twitching  nerves  torn  by  neuralgia.  At 
four  forty-five  in  the  morning  the  alarm-clock 
shrilled  through  the  darkness  and  he  rolled  from 
the  tumbled  bed  to  light  the  oil-lamp.  Lights 
glimmered  from  windows  here  and  there,  and 
the  shadowy  street  was  alive  with  denser  shadows 
and  glimmering  lanterns  when  he  came  out  into 
the  frosty  morning  air.  He  was  at  the  shaft  while 
the  dawn  was  still  reddening  above  the  jagged 
mountain  tops. 

The  dark,  dripping  walls  of  the  tunnel  were 


HERBERT  HOOVER  181 

lighted  dimly  by  his  candle.  Hundreds  of  feet 
beneath  the  mountain  Tommy  Nennis  was  at  work 
with  drill  and  pick.  He  was  a  sturdy,  begrimed 
miner  with  a  rude  wit  and  a  hearty  contempt  for 
dudes  with  college  educations ;  pushing  a  car  for 
a  real  miner  was  good  enough  for  'em,  by  Gosh ! 
It  would  learn  them  something  useful  before  they 
got  through.  In  the  dank  air,  between  the  wet 
black  walls,  standing  ankle  deep  in  mud,  Tommy 
Nennis  worked  mightily  with  skilful  dredge  and 
sledge,  piling  up  the  loosened  ore,  and  up  and 
down  the  long  tunnel  Bert  Hoover  pushed  the 
loaded  car  on  the  slimy  rails.  At  one  end  of  the 
trip  the  dimly  lighted  shaft  cage;  at  the  other, 
twinkling  like  a  firefly,  Tommy  Nennis'  light;  be 
tween  them  blackness  and  the  chill,  damp  breath 
of  the  sunless  earth.  Day  after  day,  all  alike. 
The  life  of  an  earthworm  crawling  in  the  dark 
ness,  accomplishing  nothing,  learning  nothing,  pil 
ing  up  the  ore  for  the  mills. 

Two  months  of  it  and  then  one  night  he  said  to 
Kimball,  "I  Ve  resigned  my  position  as  assistant 
to  Tommy  Nennis  and  I  '11  accept  the  one  you 
spoke  of  yesterday.  I  know  it  's  a  dollar  less  a 
day  but  there  are  compensations. " 

He  tipped  back  his  chair  against  the  wall.  "I 
wrote  Dr.  Branner  last  night, "  he  went  on.  "I 
told  him  that  as  nearly  as  I  can  determine  from 
my  two  months'  experience  in  mining,  the  differ- 


182  THE  MAKING  OF 

ence  between  mining  and  geology  is  like  that  be 
tween  the  old-time  bear-hunters  and  the  city  man. 
When  they  came  upon  bear  tracks  the  old  hunter 
became  excited  and  started  to  tear  through  the 
brush  on  a  dead  run  after  the  bear.  But  the  city 
man  finally  gasped  out,  'What  are  you  doing? 
Let  's  go  back  up  the  tracks  and  see  where  lie 
came  from!'  There  are  some  obligations  in 
curred  when  you  reach  the  bear  which  I  do  not 
thoroughly  appreciate  as  yet,  and  I  still  believe 
there  is  more  satisfaction  in  seeing  where  he  came 
from." 

44 That  '11  please  Branner,"  said  Kimball.  "He 
hates  to  see  us  promising  geologists  degenerate 
into  mere  money-making  miners." 

Kimball  and  he,  when  they  had  cleaned  up  and 
changed  at  the  mine,  tramped  homeward  in  the 
late  afternoons  to  Mrs.  Fleming's,  where  they 
roomed.  They  ate  enormous  quantities  of  Mrs. 
Barker's  good  cooking,  across  the  street.  Then  in 
the  dusk  they  went  down  to  the  Nevada  City  Ho 
tel,  hoping  to  run  across  engineers  or  big  mining 
men  from  the  city.  These  men,  brought  into  the 
mountains  by  business,  kept  there  overnight,  were 
bored  by  waiting  and  glad  to  talk  to  young  college 
men.  In  the  warm  barroom,  whose  closed  doors 
shut  out  the  wild  cold  darkness  of  the  Sierra  night, 
they  lounged  against  the  rail  and  talked,  ordering 
a  drink  occasionally. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  183 

"I  '11  take  a  cigar,  thanks, "  said  Bert,  and 
smoking  it  he  listened  to  talk  of  mines  and  min 
ing  in  Africa,  Australia,  Russia  and  Abyssinia. 
A  large  world,  stimulating  the  imagination,  spur 
ring  a  tethered  ambition. 

"If  my  college  education  can't  get  me  any 
thing  better  than  pushing  an  ore-car  for  a  living 
I  'd  better  quit  mining, ' '  he  said  one  night,  in 
grim  determination.  George  Hoffman,  the  min 
ing  engineer  to  whom  he  said  it,  looked  at  him 
thoughtfully. 

"Why  don't  you  go  after  a  job  with  Louis 
Janin?  He  has  a  habit  of  picking  up  young  men 
and  placing  them  pretty  well.  It  might  be  worth 
trying. ' ' 

"It  's  a  good  idea,"  he  replied  after  considering 
it  for  a  moment.  That  night  he  packed  his  clothes 
and  some  specimens  for  Stanford,  and  in  the 
morning  he  was  on  the  San  Francisco  train. 

Louis  Janin's  office  was  over  the  Anglo-Cali 
fornia  Bank  on  the  corner  of  Pine  and  Sansome 
streets.  Determination  restrained  the  young 
man's  quivering  excitement  as  he  walked  up 
the  flight  of  stairs  and  opened  the  door  marked 
JANIN.  It  was  a  small  room,  unoccupied  at  the 
moment.  An  open  door,  and  beyond  it,  in  the 
inner  office,  sat  an  elderly  Frenchman,  plump, 
kindly-looking,  lost  in  concentrated  attention  to 


184  THE  MAKING  OF 

some  papers  on  the  flat-topped  desk  before  him. 

"Mr.  Janin?" 

The  famous  mining  expert  looked  up  and 
smiled.  "Good  morning.  What  can  I  do  for 
you?" 

"You  can  give  me  a  job." 

Louis  Janin  leaned  back,  crossed  his  hands  upon 
his  waistcoat,  and  considered  the  applicant,  a 
twinkle  in  his  eye. 

"Perhaps.  Sit  down  and  we  will  talk  about 
it." 

He  spoke  as  earnestly  as  he  could.  A  Stanford 
education  in  mineralogy  and  mining ;  two  summers 
with  the  United  States  Geological  survey  in  the 
Sierras;  three  months'  experience  in  practical 
mining.  He  was  eager  to  get  any  work  that 
promised  a  future  opportunity.  He  came  to 
Janin  because  of  Janin 's  reputation  and  experi 
ence.  Could  he  get  a  foothold  of  any  kind  in  that 
office? 

"Hm — two  summers  in  the  Sierras?  With 
Lindgren  I  Have  you  any  references  f  * ' 

"I  did  not  bring  any,  Mr.  Janin.  I  can  get 
them." 

"Do  that,  please.  You  understand  that  what 
I  can  give  you  to  do  will  depend  upon  the  confi 
dence  I  can  place  in  your  integrity,  and  you  are 
unknown  to  me.  Bring  me  some  letters,  by  all 
means.  In  the  meantime,  stay  around  the  office. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  185 

I  can  find  something  to  keep  you  busy.  Some 
thing  may  develop  that  will  give  you  a  good  oppor 
tunity." 

He  let  loose  his  excitement  as  he  went  down 
the  stairs.  He  was  with  Janin!  He  felt  like 
flinging  his  hat  into  the  air  and  whooping  aloud. 
He  thrust  his  hands  deep  into  his  pockets  and 
strode  quickly  down  the  street  toward  a  ferry  car. 
Theodore  and  his  sister  May  were  living  in  Oak 
land;  he  hastened  to  tell  them  the  news  and  to 
write  to  Dr.  Branner  at  Stanford  for  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Janin. 

The  job  carried  thirty  dollars  a  month,  less 
than  with  Tommy  Nennis,  but  it  was  an  oppor 
tunity  better  than  any  money.  When  Dr.  Bran 
ner  's  strong  recommendation  earned  by  his  four 
years  at  Stanford  was  in  Janin 's  hands,  he  was 
given  a  task  upon  which  to  focus  all  his  expe 
rience.  His  quick  decision  to  come  to  San  Fran 
cisco  had  brought  him  into  Janin 's  office  at  the 
moment  when  that  expert  was  working  on  a  case 
involving  the  geology  of  the  Sierras,  the  very 
strata  he  had  so  recently  tested  and  mapped.  It 
was  fresh  in  his  mind,  he  knew  every  detail  of  it ; 
his  knowledge  was  invaluable  to  Janin.  He 
worked  indefatigably  on  that  case,  drawing  up 
reports,  sketching  maps,  preparing  geological 
demonstration  slides.  It  was  a  good  piece  of 
work ;  the  North  Star  case  was  won  with  its  help ; 


186  THE  MAKING  OF 

he  was  asked  to  write  an  article  for  the  "Mining 
and  Scientific  Press "  about  it.  And  six  weeks 
later  he  was  on  his  way  to  New  Mexico  at  a  salary 
of  thirty  dollars  a  week  and  expenses. 

A  flat  expanse  of  sand  and  sage-brush,  quiver 
ing  in  white  heat.  Mexican  huts,  naked  brown 
babies,  sweating  water-jugs  hanging  in  the  shade. 
Interminable  miles  of  driving  behind  panting 
ponies.  Mining-camps  in  full  bloom;  gamblers, 
prospectors,  Mexicans,  saloon-keepers,  and 
smooth  plausible  promoters,  hot-eyed  with  the 
gold  fever,  thronging  the  narrow  streets  between 
the  raw  lumber  buildings,  drinking  at  the  bars, 
brawling  on  the  sidewalks.  Sixty-three  mines  to 
consider  with  sober  judgment,  to  investigate, 
sample,  make  reports  upon.  The  fortunes  of 
many  men  and  his  own  future  hanging  upon  his 
decisions. 

He  traveled  with  a  six-shooter  ready  to  his  hand 
and  a  rifle-guard  at  his  back,  for  part  of  his  work 
was  mapping  the  Lessees  Carlisle  Gold  Mines,  and 
there  were  prospectors  who  threatened  to  kill  him 
if  he  appeared  on  their  ground  with  a  transit. 
The  superintendent  of  the  mines  at  Carlisle  had 
been  killed  by  his  Mexicans.  The  towns  were  in 
full  bloom,  dance-halls,  saloons,  and  gambling- 
joints  wide  open,  and  the  law  was  represented  by 
a  justice  of  the  peace  who  suffered  from  delirium 


HERBERT  HOOVER  187 

tremens  and  a  blind-tunnel  which  was  used  as  a 
jail  by  the  sober  citizens. 

With  a  big  cow-boy  named  Connors  he  rode  to 
the  Mohollone  Mountains,  ninety  miles  across  the 
shimmering  desert,  to  investigate  some  prospects 
reported  there.  He  slept  at  night  beneath  the 
stars,  a  saddle-blanket  rolled  into  a  pillow  and  a 
lariat  coiled  around  the  camp  to  discourage  wan 
dering  rattlesnakes.  He  rode  by  day  under  the 
hot  sun,  alkali  dust  on  his  lips  and  in  his  nostrils, 
and  watched  the  mocking  hills  that  seemed  so  near 
and  took  so  long  to  reach.  When  the  travelers 
reached  them  at  last  they  found,  as  they  rounded 
a  curve  of  the  land,  a  dozen  swarthy,  desperate- 
looking  men  with  cartridge-belts  and  holsters  at 
their  hips,  gathered  around  a  camp  fire. 

"  Prospectors, "  said  Connors,  taking  in  at  a 
glance  the  camp  and  the  pack-burros  grazing  in 
the  sage-brush.  "Gun  loaded?  You  can't  some 
times  'most  always  tell  about  what  you  're  going 
to  run  against  around  here." 

They  rode  slowly  forward,  and  one  of  the  men 
rose  and  came  to  meet  them.  He  was  unshaven, 
haggard,  his  lined  face  and  gnarled  hands  burned 
deep  by  years  of  sun  on  the  desert.  The  long 
patience  of  deferred  hope  in  his  eyes  was  lighted 
by  a  moment's  eagerness.  "You  men  got  any 
medicine  with  you?  One  of  us  is  mighty  sick,  and 
we  can't  seem  to  do  nothing  for  him." 


188  THE  MAKING  OF 

They  swung  down  from  the  saddles.  The  sick 
man  lay  on  a  blanket  sheltered  from  the  sun  by  a 
canvas  fly.  His  comrades  had  given  him  whisky 
and  quinine  without  effect ;  there  was  nothing  more 
that  they  could  do ;  the  nearest  doctor  was  a  hun 
dred  miles  away  and  the  man  was  dying.  The 
new-comers  had  brought  nothing  that  could  help 
him.  Herbert  Hoover  could  only  make  him  more 
comfortable,  straightened  his  blanket,  bathing  his 
face  and  hands  with  cooling  water.  His  com 
rades,  relapsed  into  stolid  hopelessness,  stood  or 
sat  about  the  wisp  of  fire  on  which  the  coffee-pot 
boiled.  At  sunset  the  man  opened  his  eyes  and 
for  some  time  regarded  Herbert  Hoover  atten 
tively.  Then  he  beckoned  him  to  lean  closer. 
4 'Can  you  write f  " 
"Yes." 

1 '  There  *s  a  girl — in  Kentucky.  Write  to  her— 
and  say- 
Crouched  beside  the  blanket,  his  note-book  on 
his  knee,  he  took  down  the  name  and  address  of 
the  girl  in  Kentucky  and  listened  to  the  things  that 
he  must  write  her.  He  was  there  beside  the 
blanket  when  the  man  died. 

The  next  morning  Connors  approached  him 
awkwardly.  "  Those  fellows  want  you  to  say 
something,"  he  said.  "You  know— at  the 
funeral." 


HERBERT  HOOVER  189 

"Aw,  Connors!  I  can't  do  anything  like  that. 
I  would  n  't  know  how. ' ' 

"It  ain't  hardly  decent  to  plant  him  without 
somebody  saying  something,  and  you  're  a  darn 
sight  nearer  being  a  minister  than  the  rest  of  us. 
These  men,  you  know,  they  've  been  traveling  with 
him  a  long  time.  He  's  sort  of  a  pardner  of  theirs, 
and  they  want  things  done  right  for  him.  They 
been  talking  it  over,  and  they  picked  you." 

They  had  finished  wrapping  the  body  in  a 
blanket,  tied  about  with  ropes.  Their  prospect 
or's  shovels  had  dug  the  grave  in  the  sand. 
Everything  was  as  decently  in  order  as  they  could 
make  it,  and  now  they  stood  helplessly,  waiting. 
His  eyes  filled  suddenly  with  tears.  "I  guess 
it  's  up  to  me,"  he  said  in  a  hard,  practical  voice. 
"I  '11  do  my  best." 

He  stood  at  the  head  of  the  grave  with  the  ring 
of  silent  weather-worn  men  around  it,  and  with 
painful  effort,  pausing  between  the  sentences,  he 
spoke  to  them  of  God  who  forgives  all  trans 
gressions  and  comforts  all  sorrows,  and  who  holds 
the  earth  in  His  hands,  so  that  it  's  all  right, 
somehow.  Awkwardly,  with  bowed  heads  and 
stumbling  memories,  they  followed  him  in  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  and  then  quietly  they  filled  the 
grave,  smoothed  its  top  with  their  spades,  and 
made  a  small  mound  of  sticks  and  stones  upon  it. 


190  THE  MAKING  OF 

One  by  one  they  wrung  his  hand,  and  he  and  Con 
nors  rode  away. 

The  memory  of  that  file  of  rough  men,  som 
breros  in  hand,  silently  carrying  away  the  blan 
keted  body  to  bury  it  in  that  desolate  land,  re 
mained  vividly  with  him  for  a  long  time.  He 
wrote  as  gently  as  possible  to  the  girl  in  Ken 
tucky,  and  tried  to  put  the  memory  away  from 
him.  But  it  persisted.  He  was  only  twenty-two, 
and  every  day  death  stood  at  his  own  shoulder. 
He  learned  then  to  face  it  without  lowering  his 
eyes,  and  in  the  test  his  untried  youth  was  tem 
pered  and  hardened  to  the  spirit  of  a  man. 

There  was  for  him  no  intoxication  of  excitement 
in  the  dangers  he  faced.  His  nature,  so  balanced 
and  temperate,  would  no  more  become  drunken 
with  life  than  with  liquor.  At  the  root  of  his  love 
of  living  lay  not  only  the  human  sense-delights  of 
sun  and  food  and  movement,  but  also  that  stern 
sense  of  moral  duty  that  is  the  American  religion. 
The  value  of  life  was  not  enjoyment  but  accom 
plishment;  it  lay  not  in  emotional  or  spiritual 
values  but  in  the  concrete  task  completed.  He 
faced  death  unwillingly  but  courageously  because 
to  face  it  was  part  of  the  day's  work  and  work 
was  life. 

"  You  boys  better  look  out  for  rattlers, "  he  said 
one  evening  at  a  supper  table  where  a  group  of 
young  American  mining  men  were  hastily  filling 


HERBERT  HOOVER  191 

empty  stomachs  with  Mexican  food.  "I  stepped 
on  one  in  a  shaft  to-day. ' ' 

Their  excited  questions  compelled  details.  "I 
was  going  down  to  examine  an  old  shaft.  You 
know  those  rotten  rickety  ladders  that  go  down 
into  black  darkness.  Well,  I  was  going  down 
backward,  feeling  with  my  feet  to  see  that  the 
rungs  were  solid,  and  all  of  a  sudden  in  the  dark 
I  stepped  on  something  soft.  It  was  a  big  rattler 
coiled  around  the  rung.  The  mines  that  have  n't 
been  worked  lately  are  probably  full  of  them." 

"  What  did  you  do  1" 

"What  do  you  think  I  did?  I  went  out  of  that 
shaft  like  forty-two  winged  acrobats  and  landed 
on  top  paler  than  a  flour-mill,  of  course.  Just 
the  same,  he  got  me  three  times,  but  luckily  I  was 
wearing  thick  corduroys,  so  his  fangs  didn't  get 
through  to  the  skin. ' ' 

"Well!" 

"That  's  all.  I  tied  a  lighted  candle  on  a  string 
next  time  I  went  down,  you  bet.  He  was  still 
there,  so  I  shot  him  with  my  revolver. ' ' 

"And  went  on  down  that  shaft!" 

' '  Naturally.     He  was  dead. ' ' 

"You  darned  old  idiot!  Don't  you  know  his 
mate  was  around  there  somewhere,  waiting  for 
you?" 

"Gee  whiz!  I  never  thought  of  that."  He 
did  not  say  that  if  he  had  thought  of  it  his  action 


192  THE  MAKING  OF 

would  have  been  the  same.     It  was  his  job  to 
examine  that  mine. 

It  was  his  job,  too,  to  make  reports  on  the  mines 
he  examined.  With  Lindgren  he  had  been  an 
assistant,  working  on  reports  always  subject  to 
the  supervision  of  an  older  and  experienced  man. 
Here  he  stood  alone  on  his  own  responsibility,  and 
his  reports  involved  fortunes  and  all  the  human 
antagonisms  that  center  about  money.  Not  only 
his  technical  authority  was  at  stake,  but  his  repu 
tation  for  sound  judgment  and  for  an  honesty  that 
could  not  be  bought.  The  strain  upon  him  did  not 
end  with  the  making  of  minutely  painstaking  re 
ports  ;  he  must  stand  by  them,  unswerved  by  crit 
icism,  unchanged  in  his  opinion  by  counter-reports 
of  experts  older  than  he.  He  went  through  days 
and  nights  of  anxiety  after  his  report  that  the 
Green  Mountain  Mine  was  salted.  Experts  dis 
agreed  upon  it,  and  the  force  of  their  authority 
was  augmented  by  doubts  of  himself  that  crept 
through  his  own  mind.  He  knew  that  he  was 
young;  he  knew  that  even  experienced  experts 
sometimes  made  errors.  But  on  this  question  of 
the  Green  Mountain  Mine  he  was  as  sure  as  a  man 
could  be  that  he  was  right,  and  he  stood  firm.  He 
held  to  his  opinion  even  when  it  was  so  doubted 
that  the  Anglo-Calif  ornian  Bank  of  San  Francisco 
sent  its  own  experts  to  examine  the  mine  and  re 
port  upon  his.  reports.  But  his  hidden  doubts  of 


HERBERT  HOOVER  193 

himself  became  nightmare  certainties  during  the 
long  nights  that  were  so  hot  he  could  not  sleep. 
When  at  last  the  new  expert  opinion  confirmed  his 
own,  his  deep  breath  of  relief  was  like  the  breaking 
of  a  constriction  upon  him ;  he  expanded,  and  felt 
himself  an  older  and  an  abler  man.  He  looked 
back  with  surprise  upon  himself  as  he  had  been 
only  a  few  months  earlier.  A  gulf  widened  be 
tween  him  and  the  boy  who  had  pushed  the  ore- 
car  for  Tommy  Nennis ;  he  was  amazed  by  the  re 
alization  that  he  was  the  same  person. 

He  lay  awake  one  night  in  a  curtainless,  uncar- 
peted  room  through  whose  warped  board  floor 
came  sounds  of  riot  from  the  saloon  below.  It 
was  midnight,  but  he  could  not  sleep.  He  had  a 
decision  to  make.  That  day  he  had  received  a 
letter  from  Lindgren,  intimating  that  he  could 
now  go  back  into  the  work  of  the  United  States 
Geological  Survey.  At  the  same  time  Janin  had 
made  him  resident  engineer  in  New  Mexico,  nom 
inally  assistant  superintendent.  He  stood  at  a 
fork  in  the  road,  compelled  to  decide  his  future. 
Geology,  or  mining? 

He  wished  to  be  a  geologist.  Dr.  Branner's 
teaching  and  his  own  scientific  mind  inclined  him 
to  follow  science  for  its  own  sake.  Science — that 
clear,  selfless  passion  for  knowledge  that  is  the 
difference  between  man  and  the  other  animals, 
that  endess  search  whose  slowly  accumulated 


194  THE  MAKING  OF 

store  is  the  real  wealth  of  mankind.  He  could  do 
good  work  in  science;  he  knew  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  mining — the  application  of  present  scien 
tific  knowledge  to  the  practical  affairs  of  men; 
getting  out  from  the  stubborn  earth  the  metals 
that  make  civilization  possible:  steel  for  tall 
buildings,  for  railroads,  for  the  machines  of  a 
world  created  by  machinery;  coal,  whose  posses 
sion  makes  and  unmakes  nations;  gold,  the  life- 
blood  of  international  commerce. 

It  was  a  materialistic  age,  a  pragmatic  age. 
And  he  was  a  son  of  that  young  pioneer  nation 
whose  rewards  went  to  men  whose  work  showed 
immediate,  practical  results.  There  was  the  per 
sonal  problem :  could  he  make  a  living  as  a  geolo 
gist!  Could  he  make  enough  to  support  a  wife 
and  family,  to  lift  them  above  the  fear  of  want 
and  crippling  semi-poverty!  The  world  did  not 
reward  its  scientists;  it  did  not  even  feed  them. 
Yet  he  would  have  liked  to  be  one. 

If  he  abandoned  mining  now  and  went  to  the 
work  he  loved  in  the  Sierras  he  must  face  the 
probability  of  being  forced  some  day  to  return  to 
mining  in  order  to  live  and  provide  for  his  future. 
He  would  come  back  as  an  older  man ;  he  would  be 
obliged  to  ask  help  of  men  who  had  forged  ahead 
while  he  was  standing  still.  They  would  know 
that  he  had  once  had  a  splendid  opportunity  as  a 
young  mining  man  and  had  given  it  up.  His  new 


HERBERT  HOOVER  195 

position  in  Janin's  service  reawakened  half -terri 
fying  doubts  of  his  own  ability;  he  was  not  sure 
that  he  could  do  the  work.  To  leave  it  would  be 
to  quit  an  uncertain  battle ;  he  would  never  know 
whether  or  not  he  could  have  won  it,  and  that 
question,  which  he  might  have  to  meet  in  the  eyes 
of  other  mining  men,  he  would  not  be  able  easily 
to  face  in  his  own. 

Clearly  in  his  own  mind  he  set  down  the  parallel 
columns  of  argument,  for  geology  and  for  min 
ing.  At  the  bottom  he  added  figures:  Salary, 
United  States  Geological  Survey,  twelve  hundred 
dollars  a  year;  with  Janin,  two  thousand  a  year. 
The  money  made  very  little  difference  now.  It 
all  came  down  to  the  question,  Could  he  succeed 
better  as  a  mining  man  or  as  a  geologist? 

It  was  a  decision  so  important  that  he  deter 
mined  to  ask  advice.  He  pulled  down  the  window- 
shade,  shutting  out  the  arch  of  stars  above  the 
wide  dark  plain,  and  lighting  the  lamp  sat  down 
to  write  to  Dr.  Branner,  the  good  friend  at  Stan 
ford  whose  interest  in  his  career  had  never  failed. 

The  answer  came  two  weeks  later.  He  rode 
into  town  and  stood  in  the  crowded  post-office  at 
mail-time  to  receive  it,  and  on  the  edge  of  the  side 
walk  he  tore  open  the  envelope  and  read  quickly 
three  pages  of  sober  discussion  of  the  problem. 
On  the  typewritten  page  he  saw  lucidly  set  forth 
his  prospects  of  great  success  in  mining,  and  his 


196  THE  MAKING  OF 

probable  future  as  a  geologist  in  which  he  must 
expect  his  reward  to  be  largely  in  the  honor  he 
might  win  in  his  own  small  group.  Dr.  Branner 
and  Dr.  Jordan  had  considered  his  letter  carefully, 
in  the  light  of  their  greater  knowledge  of  the 
world  and  their  understanding  of  his  own  char 
acter  and  ability.  The  letter  ended  in  nine  words 
of  the  advice  for  which  he  had  asked. 

He  folded  the  letter  and  put  it  in  his  pocket. 
' ' Stay  where  you  are."  That  was  the  advice  of 
his  good  friend  who  himself  served  pure  science 
with  all  the  passion  of  his  fine  mind  and  all  the 
energy  of  his  life ;  it  was  the  advice  of  a  man  who 
loved  science  and  knew  the  life  of  a  scientist.  "It 
is  a  considerable  risk  for  one  who  must  have  bread 
and  butter." 

"Large  interests  .  .  .  run  like  big  machines. 
Promotion  ...  in  the  employ  of  such  financiers, 
may  lead  to  as  good  a  position  as  there  is  in 
mining  engineering."  That  meant  success, 
power,  great  wealth.  It  meant,  sometime,  a 
secure  future  in  which  a  man  might  be  safe  and 
free  to  do  disinterested  work.  If  he  succeeded. 

Across  the  street  the  landlord  beat  on  the  din 
ner  gong.  Sleek,  white-fingered  gamblers,  cow 
boys  with  handkerchiefs  around  their  necks,  a 
dusty  engineer  or  two,  crossed  the  hot  road  and 
went  through  the  swinging  screen  door  of  the  one- 
story  restaurant.  A  ragged  Mexican  miner 


HERBERT  HOOVER  197 

slouched  out  of  the  post-office  and  went  toward 
the  nearest  saloon,  his  feet  raising  little  plops  of 
white  dust.  At  the  end  of  the  short  street 
stretched  the  wide  sterile  land,  parched  and  dead, 
giving  birth  to  no  green  thing,  feeding  only,  from 
its  dark  mines,  these  desolate  bare  towns.  No. 
Doing  more  than  that.  Feeding  the  big  machines 
of  modern  civilization,  itself  part  of  the  big  ma 
chine;  its  mines  linked  by  a  common  ownership 
with  the  Anaconda  of  Butte,  the  Oneida  of  Cal 
ifornia,  the  Kimberley  diamond-fields,  the  Rand 
and  the  Crown  Reef  in  Africa,  and  scores  of  other 
great  mines.  All  of  them  pouring  their  gold, 
jewels,  copper,  coal,  into  the  hands  of  the  big  men 
at  the  center  of  the  machine  that  covered  the 
world. 

He,  too,  was  part  of  that  machine,  that  gigantic 
organization  of  human  lives  and  material  things 
— thousands  of  Mexicans,  black  Africans,  and 
Chinese;  miners,  engineers,  promoters,  bankers; 
laboratories,  mills,  railroads,  ships;  raw  gold  in 
the  earth,  minted  gold  in  the  vaults ;  international 
credit,  stock-markets,  laws,  diplomacy  behind  the 
thrones  of  Europe.  A  young  man,  barely  twenty- 
two,  standing  in  dust-grimed,  sweat-stained 
clothes  on  the  rickety  porch  of  the  post-office  in  an 
ugly  little  New  Mexican  mining  town,  he  was  al 
ready  in  the  great  game.  Only  a  little  way  in, 
still  unnoticed  among  the  thousands  on  the  outer 


198  THE  MAKING  OF 

edge  of  the  huge  circle,  but  in  it  now  for  all  he 
was  worth ;  in  it  to  win ! 

1 '  The  man  who  looks  after  his  employers '  inter 
ests  is  often  promoted  rapidly,  while  the  one  who 
does  n  't  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  work— 
His  mind  was  no  longer  divided.  The  spirit  of 
the  work  was  his,  now,  and  would  be.  Mining, 
mine-development,  mine-organization,  gold,  iron, 
steel — they  were  his  job.  Some  day  he  would  be 
in  the  center  of  the  big  machine. 

Unconsciously  he  had  thrust  his  hands  deep  into 
his  pockets,  leaning  forward  a  little,  tense.  He 
relaxed,  now,  and  grinned,  remembering  Kim- 
ball's  rueful,  half-serious  complaint:  "It  isn't  so 
much  being  young  that  handicaps  us:  it  's  not 
having  a  mustache !" 

He  came  into  San  Francisco  that  winter,  sun 
burned  brown,  smiling  confidently,  with  the  record 
of  a  good  summer's  work  behind  him.  Louis 
Janin  received  him  with  commendations.  The  big 
firm  of  Bewick,  Moreing  in  London  had  asked 
Janin  to  recommend  a  young  American  mining 
man  to  send  to  Australia;  salary,  nine  hundred 
and  sixty  pounds,  almost  five  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  Did  Mr.  Hoover  want  the  job? 

His  self-confidence  melted  within  him,  leaving 
him  a  hollow  shell  upheld  by  a  desperate  deter 
mination.  The  job  was  too  big  for  him;  he  knew 
it.  He  had  not  the  knowledge,  the  experience, 


HERBERT  HOOVER  199 

the  ability,  that  could  possibly  be  worth  five  thou 
sand  dollars  a  year.  But  he  wanted  the  oppor 
tunity,  and  the  salary  was  a  fortune. 

' '  Do  you  think  I  can  do  the  work,  Mr.  Janin  ? ' ' 

"You  can't  tell  until  you  try.  I  'm  willing  to 
recommend  you  for  it.  Bewick,  Moreing  want 
something  they  cannot  get,  anyhow;  they  write 
that  they  must  have  a  man  not  more  than  thirty 
years  old,  with  seventy-five  years7  experience.  A 
man  over  thirty  can't  stand  the  Australian  climate 
and  living  conditions,  they  say,  and  it  needs  a  man 
of  seventy-five  to  handle  their  problems  down 
there. "  He  chuckled.  "  Think  it  over,  and  let 
me  know." 

He  thought  it  over.  The  Australian  mining- 
boom  was  on  the  wane ;  English  firms,  with  scores 
of  mines  bought  in  the  days  of  feverish  excite 
ment,  were  clamoring  for  American  men  to  help 
them  handle  the  difficulties  of  reorganization  and 
management.  It  was  a  great  opportunity,  if  he 
could  make  good.  It  was  five  thousand  a  year. 
It  was  a  job  too  big  for  him.  But  if  Janin  was 
willing  to  recommend  him  he  would  be  a  coward 
to  quit  before  he  was  beaten.  He  could  at  least 
go  down  fighting. 

Janin 's  recommendation  of  him  went  to  London, 
and  a  sense  of  anxious  waiting  gnawed  at  the  back 
of  his  mind.  He  made  flying  trips  into  Wyoming 
and  Nevada  for  Janin,  cleaning  up  little  jobs.  He 


200  THE  MAKING  OF 

met  and  compared  experiences  with  the  old  Stan 
ford  crowd;  G.  B.  Wilson,  Kimball,  Mitchell,  Fol- 
som,  Lester  Hinsdale,  and  Sam  Collins.  There 
was  a  jolly  Christmas  celebration  in  the  little 
Berkeley  cottage  where  Cousin  Harriette  and  Sis 
ter  May  were  now  keeping  house  for  him  and 
Theodore.  There  was  a  decorated  Christmas 
tree,  an  enormous  dinner,  and  an  evening  around 
the  fire,  where  he  and  Sam  Collins  popped  corn 
and  teased  the  girls  and  he  told  mining  tales.  But 
all  the  while  he  was  uneasy,  with  the  thought  of 
Australia  alternately  flushing  and  chilling  him. 

Suddenly  there  was  a  flurry  of  cablegrams  dis 
cussing  terms  and  dates,  a  week  when  he  haunted 
Janin's  office  and  started  at  the  peal  of  the  tele 
phone,  and  it  was  settled.  Five  hundred  dollars 
was  cabled  for  his  expenses;  Bewick,  Moreing 
engaged  to  deposit  four  hundred  dollars  a  month 
to  his  credit  in  the  Anglo-California'  Bank.  He 
was  to  leave  at  once  for  Australia,  by  way  of 
London. 

It  was  incredible  as  a  fairy  tale.  New  York! 
London!  Italy,  the  Mediterranean,  the  Suez 
Canal,  Ceylon  and  Australia !  Five  thousand  dol 
lars  a  year!  His  quiet  self-control  for  once  was 
flung  away;  he  burst  into  the  Berkeley  cottage, 
whooping,  waving  the  final  cablegram.  "Tad! 
Girls!  It  's  settled!  I  'm  off  for  a  trip  around 
the  world !"  They  fell  on  him  with  shrieks  and 


HEBBEKT  HOOVER  201 

tears  and  laughter;  they  danced  around  the  din 
ing-room  table;  they  celebrated  with  the  biggest 
dinner  the  girls  had  ever  cooked,  every  light  in 
the  house  ablaze,  flowers  on  the  table,  every  one 
interrupting  everybody  else. 

"You  '11  have  to  have  some  new  clothes— 
"And  a  traveling-bag,  and  shoes.     There  's  a 
sale  down  at — " 

"Think  of  seeing  Westminster  Abbey!  Oh, 
Bert,  do  you  suppose— 

"And  the  Alps,  and  the  Mediterranean!" 
"You  '11  be  meeting  all  kinds  of  big  people— 
The  thought  of  the  job  was  like  a  cold  wind 
blowing    upon    him    at    intervals.     "See    here, 
there  's  no  guarantee  that  I  'm  going  to  be  able  to 
make  good,  you  know. ' ' 

' '  Make  good !     Of  course  you  '11  make  good ! ' ' 
There  were  serious  consultations  the  next  day, 
and  the  next,  with  Theodore  and  G.  B.  Wilson  and 
Lester    Hinsdale.     What    about    clothes?    What 
did  one  wear  in  London? 

"You  will  absolutely  have  to  have  a  frock-coat 
and  a  tall  hat, ' '  they  decided.  ' '  And  a  good  busi 
ness  suit,  or  maybe  two." 

"A  Scotch  tweed,  made  with  a  cutaway  coat, 
would  be  a  good  idea,"  Lester  Hinsdale  advised. 
"And  see  here,  old  man,  you  must  have  them  made 
by  a  tailor.  It  's  expensive,  but  everything  de 
pends  on  making  a  good  first  impression." 


202  THE  MAKING  OF 

They  went  with  him  to  a  tailor's,  helped  him 
choose  materials,  and  stood  by  while  he  was 
measured.  The  suits  cost  forty-five  dollars  each. 
A  lot  of  money,  but  it  should  be  looked  upon  as  a 
business  investment.  "And  another  thing,  Bert: 
you  'd  better  raise  a  mustache,  and  possibly  a 
beard.  It  will  make  you  look  older  and  more  dig 
nified." 

"I  Ve  thought  of  that  already,  and  decided  to 
do  it, ' '  he  replied. 

He  took  Lester  Hinsdale  aside  and  talked  to  him 
about  his  business  affairs.  There  would  be  four 
hundred  a  month  deposited  in  the  bank;  he  had 
promised  to  send  three  people  through  college,  and 
surely  there  would  be  other  Stanford  undergrad 
uates  in  need  of  a  little  help.  Hinsdale,  doing 
graduate  work  in  Stanford,  and  treasurer  of  the 
student  body,  would  be  in  touch  with  the  boys 
and  girls  there,  and  in  a  position  to  help  wisely. 
Would  he  take  a  power  of  attorney  and  handle  the 
money? 

"It  's  ambitious  boys  and  girls  I  want  to  help, 
you  understand.  I  have  n't  any  use  for  the  kind 
that  thinks  the  world  owes  them  a  living.  But 
there  's  a  lot  of  men  down  there  that  are  working 
hard,  and  just  a  little  money  now  and  then  would 
pull  them  over  the  steep  places.  Just  a  loan  that 
they  won't  have  to  pay  back  until  they  're  able 
to  do  it.  And  I  '11  give  you  a  list  of  the  amounts 


HEEBERT  HOOVER  203 

I  want  paid  regularly  every  month.  I  '11  be  tre 
mendously  obliged  if  you  '11  handle  it  for  me. ' ' 

« I '11  b£  glad  to  doit,  Bert." 

The  power  of  attorney  was  legally  made  out  and 
recorded  at  the  bank.  The  suits  were  delivered, 
tried  on  one  by  one  for  the  girls  to  admire,  and 
packed.  There  was  a  last  talk  with  Janin,  a  last 
quick  trip  of  farewell  to  Stanford.  And  in  an 
April  evening  when  the  lights  were  beginning  to 
twinkle  along  the  misty  shore-lines,  he  crossed 
San  Francisco  Bay  for  the  last  time,  said  good-by 
to  Tad  and  the  girls  and  Hinsdale  at  the  Sixteenth- 
Street  Oakland  station,  and  began  the  long  jour 
ney. 

A  thousand  miles,  and  a  thousand  miles,  and 
another  thousand  miles,  streaming  backward  past 
him.  Over  the  Rocky  Mountains  again,  down 
across  the  Colorado  and  Dakota  deserts,  past  the 
level  fertile  plains  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  that 
stirred  dim  memories  of  his  childhood,  roaring 
through  the  smoke  of  Pittsburgh,  past  steel-mills 
and  factories  and  across  discolored  rivers  and 
torn  hillsides.  The  young  April  green  of  the 
Alleghanies,  splashed  with  the  snow  of  dogwood 
blossoms.  Then  the  roar  and  ceaseless  motion 
of  the  great  machine  that  was  New  York. 

New  York !  Stone  and  steel ;  hard,  implacable ; 
fed  by  endless  streams  of  human  traffic.  The 
heart  of  the  new  America,  where  the  backward- 


204  THE  MAKING  OF 

turning  currents  of  the  energy  that  had  conquered 
a  contingent  converged,  were  gathered  together 
for  the  new  pioneering  adventure  into  the  trade 
of  the  world.  Wall  Street.  The  House  of  J.  P. 
Morgan.  New  giants,  arisen  to  new  gigantic 
battles.  Something  there  to  stir  the  blood,  to 
quicken  and  fire  the  young  ambition  of  twenty- 
three  ! 

Already  the  old  world  called  to  the  youngest 
nation  for  help.  England,  with  her  traditions,  her 
centuries-old  pride,  her  ivied  universities,  was  not 
producing  the  men  who  could  carry  the  whole  bur 
den  of  her  far-flung  business  battles ;  it  was  Amer 
ican  energy,  American  imagination  and  initiative, 
American  organizing  ability,  that  she  needed  to 
handle  her  Australian  mines.  That  was  the  rea 
son  Bewick,  Moreing  reached  around  the  world 
to  take  him,  fresh  from  America's  youngest  uni 
versity.  Take  care,  England !  The  young  Amer 
icans  are  coming!  Young  America  is  rising  on 
the  crest  of  the  great  commercial  centuries! 
There  will  yet  be  a  day  when  the  mines  of  the 
world,  the  trade  of  the  world,  the  life  of  the  world, 
will  be  dominated  by  New  York.  The  kingdoms 
and  the  thrones  are  moving  westward ! 

Only  a  glimpse  of  the  Great  Game  came  to  him, 
a  young  man  on  the  edge  of  it.  The  clashing  of 
gigantic  forces  in  terrific  battle  echoed  faintly 
from  those  silent,  implacable  walls  of  stone,  from 


HERBERT  HOOVER  205 

the  heavy  columns  and  powerful  steel  doors  of  the 
great  banking-houses.  He  was  unknown  there,  a 
youth  lost  in  the  floods  of  unregarded  humanity. 
He  was  going  out  to  be  one  of  the  thousand  of 
small  cogs  in  the  big  machine,  and  he  was  facing 
with  doubt  and  trembling  the  work  he  would  have 
to  do  in  a  job  too  big  for  him.  He  braced  himself 
to  meet  it,  fortifying  himself  with  thoughts  of  the 
forty-five-dollar  suits  made  by  a  tailor,  and  ten 
derly  nursing  the  growing  mustache  and  beard. 

The  huge  passenger  liner  moved  out  of  the 
harbor  past  the  Goddess  of  Liberty,  upholding 
her  light  above  the  dwindling  shore  line  of  Amer 
ica.  The  wide  gray  seas  took  the  ship  and  made 
her  a  speck  floating  in  illimitable  space.  Seven 
days  and  nights  in  a  tossing  cabin  with  the  miser 
ies  of  seasickness.  Liverpool,  seen  dimly  through 
air  that  still  lifted  and  sank  with  the  movement  of 
a  ship  on  the  sea.  A  strange  little  train,  with 
compartments,  third  class,  second  class,  first 
class.  London. 

An  old  city,  a  gray  city,  a  bewildering  city ;  vast, 
chaotic.  Hideous  poverty  huddled  at  the  feet  of 
heedless  riches.  Strange  accents,  strange  baffling 
customs.  An  air  of  leisure,  a  flavor  of  the  past, 
in  the  offices  of  the  City.  Afternoon  tea.  Stately 
old  club-rooms  paneled  in  wood.  He  was  silent, 
observing  it  all,  irritated,  self-distrustful,  strug 
gling  with  the  unfamiliar.  He  had  made  a  good 


206  THE  MAKING  OF 

impression  on  Moreing;  that  ordeal  was  over.  He 
felt  that  his  new  suits  had  failed  him;  he  dis 
carded  the  tweed  cutaway  coat.  But  no  doubt  the 
beard  had  helped;  he  passed  for  twenty-eight 
or  nine.  Age  counted  too  much  with  these  people ; 
the  past  was  a  ball-and-chain  on  their  feet.  Youth 
was  the  conquering  spirit.  The  new,  the  untried, 
was  the  path  that  led  forward.  America's  feet 
were  on  it. 

With  relief  he  began  the  last  stage  of  the  jour 
ney  that  circled  three  quarters  of  the  earth.  The 
steward  on  the  luxurious  P.  and  0.  boat  explained 
that  he  could  not  enter  the  dining-saloon  after  six 
o'clock  unless  he  was  wearing  evening  clothes. 
He  did  not  possess  any.  He  explained  that  he  was 
an  American  and  would  dress  as  he  pleased  and 
eat  when  he  was  hungry.  The  steward  capit 
ulated,  and  he  dined  uncomfortably  in  blue  serge. 
But  he  resolved  to  buy  a  dress  suit  at  the  first 
opportunity.  He  had  entered  a  new  world. 

League  after  league  stretched  between  him  and 
home.  Gibraltar.  Brindisi,  the  heel  of  the  Ital 
ian  boot.  The  Mediterranean,  blue  as  San  Fran 
cisco  Bay.  Port  Said  and  the  Suez  Canal,  that 
had  been  marks  on  maps  when  he  studied  geog 
raphy  in  the  Pacific  Academy.  Aden,  strange- 
colored  and  foreign.  Colombo  in  Ceylon,  the  edge 
of  the  world.  Then  over  the  edge  of  the  world, 
and  farther  still,  miles  upon  miles  of  the  restless 


HERBERT  HOOVER  207 

sea  sliding  backward.  And  above  the  restless 
waters  rode  the  low  shore-line  of  Australia,  the 
oldest  continent  on  the  earth,  a  land  so  old  that 
the  centuries  had  worn  away  its  mountain  ranges 
and  lost  its  rivers. 

A  basket  swung  on  a  cable  carried  him  over  the 
surf  to  his  landing  in  the  little  white  town  of 
Albany.  The  railroad  was  not  yet  built  to  Cool- 
gardie ;  a  train  would  take  him  as  far  as  Southern 
Cross,  where  he  would  be  met  with  a  team.  The 
fringe  of  green  farms  about  Albany  vanished 
behind  him;  through  the  car  windows  he  saw  a 
desert  danced  upon  by  little  devils  of  whirling 
dust.  A  barren,  abandoned  land,  frozen  in  the 
terrible  cold  of  the  June  winter ;  a  monster  luring 
human  beings  to  torture  and  death  with  its  bared 
gold. 

An  English  cart  met  him  at  Southern  Cross, 
with  a  "unicorn"  team — two  horses  running 
abreast  and  a  third  in  front.  The  road  was  three 
ruts  in  the  iron-like  earth;  only  the  center  one 
smooth  and  packed  by  the  soft  padding  of  camels. 
On  each  side  rose  a  six-foot  wall  of  mulga  bush,  a 
fantastic  tangle  of  black  shrubs  that  shivered  in 
the  icy  wind.  Twenty  miles  to  Coolgardie, 
through  a  cold  like  an  Arctic  night,  and  he  drove 
into  a  little  city  of  corrugated-iron  shacks  and 
houses  walled  with  tin  and  burlap. 

As  great  business  houses  might  build  of  marble 


208  THE  MAKING  OF 

at  home,  they  built  here  of  the  precious  wood 
brought  from  Puget  Sound.  The  office  of  Bewick, 
Moreing's  London  and  West  Australian  company 
was  a  square  box  of  lumber  on  the  bleak  main 
street.  Beside  a  red-hot  stove  he  listened  to  the 
talk  of  the  manager  he  was  relieving,  glanced 
over  reports,  saw  vaguely  the  chaos  of  disorgan 
ization  he  was  inheriting.  Then  they  drove  to 
the  house  that  was  to  be  his. 

It  was  a  large,  low  bungalow  with  a  wide  ver 
anda  facing  the  endless  miles  of  desert.  A  Lon 
don  company,  capitalizing  the  eagerness  of  young 
Englishmen  to  go  to  the  colonies,  had  built  the 
house  for  the  manager  of  the  Hampton  Plains 
colonization  scheme.  The  land  was  abandoned 
now  to  return  to  the  grip  of  the  desert;  only  the 
house  remained,  a  perquisite  of  Bewick,  More- 
ing's  resident  manager.  Cook  and  valet  went 
with  it,  and  handsome  furniture  and  rugs  brought 
by  ship  from  London. 

Here  he  was  installed,  and  here  for  the  succeed 
ing  few  weeks  he  lived,  untangling  by  day  the 
many  details  of  his  new  work,  embarrassed  morn 
ing  and  evening  by  the  obsequious  "Yes,  sir," 
"No,  sir,"  of  the  English  valet,  a  man  older  than 
he.  Obviously  he  must  buy  a  dress  suit  as  soon 
as  he  could  get  to  Perth;  he  must  maintain  his 
dignity.  It  was  convenient  to  have  his  clothes 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  209 

brushed,  his  shoes  shined,  his  bath  drawn,  leaving 
his  attention  free  for  office  problems,  but  the 
man's  silent  comment  upon  him  was  disquieting; 
it  implied  a  suspicion  that  the  new  American  man 
ager  was  very  young. 

The  effort  to  conceal  his  youth  was  a  constant 
annoyance;  a  small  detail  amid  the  mass  of  diffi 
culties  he  encountered,  but  no  more  to  be  forgot 
ten  than  a  pebble  in  the  shoe.     As  resident  man 
ager  he  found  himself  the  superior  of  two  Amer 
ican  mining  experts,  graduates  of  Columbia,  with 
whom  he  would  have  been  glad  to  be  friends.     But 
the  subject  of  college  days  was  too  dangerous ;  he 
talked  with  them  guardedly,  watchful  not  to  be 
tray  that  he  was  of  the  Pioneer  Class  at  Stan 
ford  and  that  he  held  an  A.B.  degree  not  two 
years  old.     In  the  presence  of  his  surveyors  and 
assayers  and  clerks  he  maintained  a  lofty  and 
unnatural  dignity  that  guarded  the  secret  of  his 
scant  twenty-three  years,  and  he  was  daily  grate 
ful  for  the  disguise  of  drooping  mustache  and 
lengthening  beard  that  hid  the  boyishness  of  his 
mouth.     He  was  maintaining  precariously  a  posi 
tion  of  authority  in  a  country  filled  with  mining 
engineers  older  than  himself  who  had  been  left 
stranded  without  work  when  the  boom  broke.     A 
hundred  eager  eyes  were  upon  his  job,  and  there 
were  hours  when  discouragement  before  his  diffi- 


210  THE  MAKING  OF 

culties  would  have  made  him  willing  to  give  it  up 
if  he  could  have  done  so  without  admitting  to 
himself  that  he  was  a  quitter. 

The  tasks  he  had  to  do  loomed  in  monumental 
and  chaotic  heaps  before  him.  The  collapse  of 
the  mining  boom  had  left  scores  of  London  com 
panies  with  hastily  purchased,  undeveloped  or 
badly  equipped  mines  upon  their  hands.  Over  a 
.hundred  and  twenty  million  dollars  had  .been  in 
vested  by  the  British  public  in  West  Australian 
mining  schemes,  and  of  this  enormojnis  stor  all 
but  five  millions  had  gone  into  the  pockets  of  the 
promoters.  The  five  millions  left  for  working- 
capital  had  been  spent  lavishly  and  inefficiently  in 
a  country  where  legitimate  mining-costs  were  al 
most  prohibitive.  Now  the  Bewick,  Moreing  Com 
pany  was  taking  over  the  properties  as  actual 
mining  operators,  and  the  resident  manager  of 
the  Coolgardie  office  was  expected  to  produce  real 
ore  in  paying  quantities  from  the  mines  under  his 
control. 

The  cost  of  lumber  for  mine-timbers  was  $1.75 
a  running  foot.  Fresh  water  for  milling  proc 
esses  was  unobtainable  anywhere  on  the  West 
Australian  desert ;  six-hundred-foot  wells  were  dry 
and  one-thousand-foot  diamond  borings  did  not 
yield  enough  water  by  pumping  to  feed  the  pump 's 
boilers.  Salt  water  sold  for  $6.25  a  thousand 
gallons,  and  the  cost  of  distilling  for  drinking- 


HEEBERT  HOOVER  211 

purposes  added  $10.00.  It  was  used  undistilled 
for  milling,  at  a  cost  of  $2.00  for  each  ton  of  ore. 
And  the  British  public  was  clamoring  for  a  return 
on  its  investments. 

In  his  struggles  to  find  a  point  at  which  the 
over-capitalization  and  enormous  operating- 
costs  would  be  met  by  the  output  of  the  mines  the 
new  manager  encountered  another  condition 
startling  and  appalling  to  all  the  instincts  of 
American  individualism.  The  government  of 
Australia  owned  all  Australian  railroads  and 
mines.  It  was  impossible  to  secure  a  freehold  to 
mining  property;  mines  could  be  held  only  on 
leases  terminating  in  twenty  years.  Since  the 
miners  were  a  small  minority  of  Australia's  pop 
ulation,  the  government  was  in  fact  the  fringe  of 
farmers  along  the  coasts,  who  naturally  placed 
upon  the  miners  as  large  a  share  of  the  taxation 
as  was  possible.  Miners  and  farmers  formed  two 
rival  factors  in  governmental  affairs,  and  the 
effort  of  the  miners  to  have  new  railroads  built 
from  the  gold-fields  to  the  nearest  harbor  was 
defeated  by  the  farmers  around  Perth,  who  did 
not  want  a  rival  coast  town  established.  Bewick, 
Moreing  had  been  right  when  they  wrote  that  they 
needed  a  man  with  seventy-five  years'  experience 
to  handle  their  problems  in  West  Australia. 

It  was  the  health  of  twenty-three,  however,  that 
resisted  the  fierce  cold  of  the  July  and  August 


212  THE  MAKING  OF 

days  when  raging  storms  came  down  from  the 
skies  upon  the  flat  desert  country  and  flooded  it 
with  icy  water  that  resisted  freezing  only  because 
its  contact  with  the  alkaline  earth  made  lakes  of 
brine.  The  lumber  walls  of  the  office  shook  in  the 
teeth  of  the  winds  and  the  iron  roofs  of  Coolgardie 
wailed  aloud.  Trains  of  pack-camels  brought 
from  the  Gobi  desert  to  that  reversed  climate  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Equator  lay  huddled  in  the 
streets  and  moaned  in  their  coats  of  thin  summer 
hair.  Herbert  Hoover,  when  he  rode  out  on  his 
first  trip  of  inspection,  saw  that  the  groom  packed 
plenty  of  blankets  beneath  the  seat  of  the  trap. 

He  inspected  fourteen  mines  on  that  trip,  and 
condemned  ten  of  them.  Fortunes  in  England  and 
on  the  Continent  hung  on  his  decision;  millions 
of  dollars  had  been  invested  in  those  prospects. 
But  his  careful  figuring  brought  the  relentless 
facts :  the  costs  of  development  were  too  high,  the 
mines  would  not  pay  for  it. 

"I  've  been  called  in  to  mend  the  lame  ducks/' 
he  said.  "The  only  way  is  to  begin  by  killing 
the  bad  ones  immediately."  And  the  London  of 
fice  by  cable  confirmed  his  decisions. 

He  came  back  to  Coolgardie,  sent  in  his  reports 
by  cable,  and  began  a  thorough  reorganization  of 
the  office  and  the  mines,  cutting  expenses,  dis 
carding  non-essentials,  discharging  men  and  re 
placing  them  with  harder  workers.  As  soon  as 


HERBERT  HOOVER  213 

possible  he  was  cabling  home  for  American  men, 
Stanford  men,  to  help  him.  He  made  enemies,  but 
he  must  take  that  as  part  of  the  day's  work.  He 
had  undertaken  a  tremendous  task;  he  had  to  do 
it  and  do  it  well ;  the  sooner  it  was  accomplished 
the  more  quickly  he  would  be  free  for  a  bigger 
job  in  a  country  where  a  man  could  ask  a  white 
woman  to  live.  In  the  meantime  he  buried  him 
self  in  work;  he  worked  the  night  through  more 
than  once,  and  the  midnights  usually  found  him 
engrossed  in  plans  and  estimates  or  writing  the 
letters  that  were  his  only  link  with  home  and 
Stanford. 

September  brought  the  spring;  the  desert  burst 
suddenly  into  bloom,  thousands  of  unknown  flow 
ers,  red  and  gold  and  blue  and  purple,  rioted 
among  the  mulga  bush  in  an  abrupt  carnival  of 
color  that  ended  as  swiftly  as  it  had  begun,  and 
the  summer  took  the  desert.  A  summer  without 
flowers  or  green  things,  a  summer  that  focused 
the  sun's  rays  as  in  a  burning-glass,  and  played 
over  a  flat  black  land  with  dust-storms  and  shim 
mering  mirages  of  lakes  that  were  not  there. 

He  sat  alone  in  the  living-room  of  the  bungalow 
late  one  night,  writing  the  letters  that  carried 
back  to  his  friends,  in  short  hard  phrases  packed 
with  facts,  a  sense  of  that  curious  and  unfriendly 
land.  The  temperature  was  110°,  but  so  dry  that 
the  heat  was  not  as  bad  as  it  might  be.  There  had 


214  THE  MAKING  OF 

been  another  terrible  dust-storm.  Water  had 
gone  up  in  price  again.  There  were  of  course  no 
green  vegetables.  Eggs  were  twelve  cents  each. 
The  land  was  so  flat  that  there  was  no  drainage, 
which  made  it  unhealthful.  There  were  four  hun 
dred  cases  of  typhoid  in  the  hospitals  at  Cool- 
gardie.  He  was  well.  The  office  was  in  splendid 
shape.  The  junior  partner  in  charge  of  all  West 
Australia  was  certainly  good  to  him.  He  had  had 
a  raise  in  salary. 

He  sealed  the  last  letter  and  leaned  back  in  his 
chair,  pushing  his  hands  deep  into  his  pockets  and 
looking  about  him  at  the  large  neat  living-room 
of  the  bungalow.  The  shining  hardwood  floor 
reflected  the  curtains  stirring  gently  at  the  win 
dows.  The  rugs,  the  heavy  comfortable  furniture, 
the  piano  standing  invitingly  open,  were  all  like 
home.  Shut  out  the  stars  of  the  Southern  Cross 
hanging  over  the  flat  black  desert,  silence  the 
distant  howl  of  dingos  ranging  the  night,  and  he 
might  be  back  in  God's  own  country. 

He  rose  and  walked  up  and  down,  his  head  bent, 
thinking — thinking  of  the  office,  the  men  there,  the 
cross  currents  of  personalities  and  self-interests, 
the  problems  of  mining  with  poor  machinery  and 
doubtful  water-supply.  The  thoughts  ran  on, 
over  the  surface  of  his  growing  loneliness ;  he  held 
his  mind  to  them  grimly.  But  the  silence  of  the 


HERBERT  HOOVER  215 

room,  disturbed  only  by  his  own  footfalls,  was 
like  a  voice  reminding  him  of  his  isolation.  He 
stopped  beside  the  piano,  tapped  a  key,  then  an 
other.  Still  silence.  The  keys  went  down  with 
a  faint  chug  of  the  ivory  on  the  velvet.  He  lifted 
the  lid  of  the  polished  mahogany  case.  It  was 
empty,  a  hollow  shell  holding  only  a  tangle  of 
wires  and  dust. 

"Did  you  call,  sir?"  The  valet  stood  in  the 
doorway. 

"What  's  the  matter  with  this  piano,  do  you 
know?" 

"It  's  the  white  ants,  sir." 

"They  ate  the  piano?" 

"Yes,  sir.     They  eat  everything,  sir." 

His  eye  followed  the  man's  glance  along  the 
lower  edge  of  the  walls.  Sure  enough,  a  faint 
trace  of  fine  sawdust  here  and  there.  He  prodded 
the  baseboard  with  his  finger.  The  solid-looking 
wood  gave  gently  to  the  pressure.  It  was  a  mere 
shell,  hollow,  like  the  piano.  The  window-frames, 
the  door-casings — hollow,  too. 

"Any  way  to  get  at  them?" 

"No,  sir.  They  stay  inside  the  wood,  sir.  One 
only  sees  the  sawdust,  sir." 

"Well,  it  's  a  hell  of  a  country,  is  n't  it?" 

"Sol  have  heard  remarked,  sir. ' ' 

He  put  his  hands  into  his  pockets  and  stood 


216  THE  MAKING  OF 

looking1  at  the  man.  Impossible  to  attempt  a 
friendly  human  relationship  with  him  yet.  Lord, 
for  one  real  American  to  talk  to ! 

1 '  Well,  I  >m  going  to  bed.  Good  night.  Oh, 
I  ?m  leaving  to-morrow  for  a  trip.  Tell  the  cook 
I  '11  be  gone  a  couple  of  weeks,  will  you?" 

"Very  well,  sir.     Good  night,  sir." 

The  groom  brought  the  English  trap  to  the  door 
in  the  early  morning.  The  camping-outfit  was  in 
it,  the  water-casks  were  full,  the  bicycle  strapped 
on  behind.  He  had  been  warned  not  to  travel 
without  the  bicycle ;  in  case  of  an  accident  a  man 
might  die  of  thirst  before  he  could  reach  water 
on  foot. 

They  drove  to  Kalgoorlie  through  a  heat  like  a 
blast  from  a  furnace  door.  The  road  was  fairly 
well  traveled.  They  passed  dusty  prospectors, 
messengers  on  bicycles,  a  long  caravan  of  lurch 
ing  camels  patiently  padding  through  the  hot  thick 
dust  on  their  way  to  the  back  country,  attended 
by  turbaned  Mohammedans  who  had  come  with 
them  from  Afghanistan.  But  after  visiting  the 
Kalgoorlie  mines  he  struck  out  into  the  bush,  and 
was  swallowed  in  the  silence  of  the  desert. 

An  interminable  land,  baked  by  the  fierce  sun, 
its  red  soil  matted  with  the  black  mulga  bush  that 
gave  no  shade.  Intolerable  heat,  reflected  be 
tween  burning  earth  and  blazing  sky.  Hot  dust 
prickling  parching  skins  and  throats — but  one 


HERBERT  HOOVER  217 

must  be  sparing  of  the  precious  water.  Hun 
dreds  of  miles  of  this  yet  to  go ;  and  after  that, 
hundreds  of  miles  more  to  be  traveled,  as  long  as 
he  stayed  in  West  Australia.  Well,  one  must  pay 
for  success. 

They  stopped  to  eat  at  noon,  washing  dry 
throats  with  water,  lying  for  shelter  in  the  shade 
of  the  trap.  The  living  leaves  of  the  mulga  bush, 
twisted  and  black,  crackled  into  powder  in  the 
hand,  like  dried  tea-leaves.  A  giant  lizard,  five 
feet  long,  moved  sluggishly  across  the  road— a 
'  *  bung-arrow, "  prized  by  prospectors  because  it 
killed  snakes.  Ant-hills  built  like  towers,  eight 
feet  high,  rose  through  the  tangled  scrub.  They 
were  made  of  a  strange  fine  earth  cemented  to 
gether  ;  an  earth  found  nowhere  but  in  those  ant 
hills. 

"The  only  explanation  is  that  the  ants  chew  up 
the  sand,"  he  humorously  decided,  smiling 
through  the  wide-meshed  net  that  strangely 
enough  kept  off  the  swarms  of  tiny  black  flies. 
"Well,  let  's  be  getting  on." 

He  traveled  fast.  The  little  ponies,  with  relays 
at  each  station,  could  make  seventy-five  miles  a 
day,  thirty  miles  more  than  camels.  But  for  the 
longest  stretches  he  must  use  camels,  because  they 
could  live  without  water  and  eat  the  mulga.  High 
on  the  humped  backs  he  rode,  in  trappings  of  red 
and  green  and  gold,  his  swaying  body  racked  with 


218  THE  MAKING  OF 

each  lurching  step,  the  sun-rays  burning  the  hands 
that  clutched  the  saddle.  He  learned,  in  camp  at 
noon,  not  to  pass  between  the  turbaned  Afghan 
Pathans  and  the  sun ;  if  his  shadow  fell  upon  their 
food  religion  forbade  them  to  eat  it.  He  learned, 
too,  not  to  carry  bacon  or  ham  or  lard  in  a  camel 
caravan;  to  touch  a  package  containing  it  meant 
that  the  swarthy  camel-men  would  lose  their  hopes 
of  Paradise — and  kill  the  man  responsible. 

In  that  far  back  country,  too,  he  rode  with 
scores  of  unseen  eyes  upon  him.  The  little  black 
men  of  the  bush  followed  along  the  way,  stealthy, 
invisible,  passing  through  the  thickets  in  which  no 
white  man  could  go.  In  camp  in  the  evenings  he 
looked  up,  startled,  from  his  notebook  to  see  a 
thin  black  leaping  figure,  rising  above  the  five- 
foot  bush,  vanishing  again  instantly,  leaving  on 
the  eyeballs  a  memory  of  outspread  hair,  bright 
eyes,  and  a  great  bone  nose-ring.  That  was  a 
wild  man,  curious  to  look  at  him;  a  boomerang- 
thrower,  a  spearsman  whose  darting  weapon 
could  kill  at  eighty  yards.  But  the  wild  men  were 
shy,  and  slow  to  make  decisions.  There  was  no 
danger  if  the  caravan  kept  moving.  They  fol 
lowed  it,  considering  an  attack  upon  it,  unable  to 
make  up  their  minds ;  they  were  harmless  if  one 
camped  each  night  in  a  new  spot. 

Thankfully  he  ended  the  agonies  of  camel-riding 
and  settled  aching  muscles  again  in  the  seat  of  a 


HERBERT  HOOVER  219 

trap.  He  drove  back  toward  Coolgardie  and  a 
bath,  crossing  on  the  way  great  expanses  of  alkali 
—marked  "lakes"  upon  the  map — where  the  hard 
white  surface  reflected  the  horses  and  the  whirl 
ing  spokes  like  a  mirror.  As  he  went  he  watched 
with  dust-inflamed  eyes  the  cool  blue  waves  upon 
a  sandy  beach  bordered  with  palms,  a  beach  that 
moved  beside  them  across  the  white-hot  land,  a 
mirage  upon  a  surface  of  the  shimmering  air. 

"We  stop  at  Niagara  to-night,  you  said.  I 
hope  there  '11  be  water  enough  there  to  wash  off 
some  of  this  alkali  dust. ' ' 

"There  will  be,"  the  groom  promised.  "It  's 
a  jolly  good  pub,  Mr.  Hoover.  Biddy  Malone's  is 
known  from  here  to  t'other  side." 

In  Niagara  that  night— or  in  Biddy  Malone's 
burlap-walled  pub;  for  they  were  one — he  re 
joiced  in  the  luxury  of  washing  his  face,  and  ate 
good  Irish  cooking.  He  was  not  too  inquisitive 
about  the  sheets;  it  was  not  a  country  in  which 
laundry  could  be  often  done.  He  sat  on  the  steps 
after  supper,  watching  the  hot  night  fall  like  a 
blanket  upon  the  interminable  flat  desert,  and  he 
thought  of  the  cool,  beautiful  arches  of  the  old 
Quad,  and  of  the  girl  who  had  walked  with  him 
in  the  green  folds  of  the  hills  where  wild  lilies 
bloomed.  October  in  California.  The  rains 
would  be  coming  down  like  a  ground-glass  screen 
between  the  road  to  Mayfield  and  the  colored  hills ; 


220  THE  MAKING  OF 

the  grass  would  be  more  green  and  the  clearing 
skies  more  blue  with  every  dawn  that  rose  upon 
the  Santa  Clara  Valley.  And  she  was  a  junior 
now.  In  another  year  she  would  be  leaving  Stan 
ford. 

'He  finished  the  journey  back  to  Coolgardie  in 
record  time,  and  plunged  again  into  the  perplex 
ities  and  anxieties  that  had  been  accumulating 
there  for  him.  Deane  Mitchell,  coming  out  from 
California  to  help  him  with  them,  said  that  he 
looked  ten  years  older.  The  question  of  his  age 
no  longer  mattered  to  him;  he  had  proved  his 
value  to  the  company,  and  he  was  too  much 
harassed  to  trouble  about  the  opinions  of  others. 
He  found  himself  involved  in  more  problems  than 
those  of  mine-management ;  his  expert  opinion  was 
too  valuable  not  to  be  bid  for,  and  there  were  too 
many  men  with  money  in  the  gold-fields  who  said 
cynically  that  all  men  were  for  sale:  "It  's  simply 
a  matter  of  variable  price. "  He  refused  a  bribe 
of  eight  thousand  dollars  for  a  false  report  upon 
a  mine,  and  made  more  enemies.  But  it  was  a 
relief  and  a  joy  to  have  Deane  Mitchell  there  with 
him,  and  though  they  were  both  overworked,  they 
were  delighted  with  the  progress  they  made  and 
with  the  compliments  their  work  received  from 
London. 

Already  his  introduction  of  American  methods 
was  increasing  the  output  of  the  mines  and  threat- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  221 

ening  trouble  with  the  workmen.  He  had  found 
the  miners  using  the  old  double-jack,  one  man 
holding  the  drill  while  another  struck  it  with  the 
sledge.  It  was  a  method  of  working  that  had 
gone  out  of  use  in  America  fifty  years  before  with 
the  introduction  of  the  more  efficient  single- jack. 
He  sent  to  America  for  single-jacks,  put  them  into 
the  mines,  and  faced  a  rebellion  of  the  miners. 
They  refused  to  use  the  new  tools ;  they  flung  them 
into  the  machinery  of  the  stamp-mills  and  they 
were  found  in  the  tunnels  doggedly  working  in  the 
old  way.  The  managers  reported  increasing  dis 
content. 

"Fire  'em  if  they  won't  follow  orders  after 
you  Ve  explained  and  given  them  a  chance.  We 
can  get  men  that  will."  The  single-jack  was  the 
efficient  tool,  used  by  American  miners;  the  Aus 
tralians  could  learn  to  use  it  or  get  out  of  his 
mines.  Engineers  and  foremen,  too,  felt  the  new 
driving  force  and  initiative  that  were  reconstruct 
ing  a  dozen  mines  from  the  bottom  up.  They 
worked  tirelessly  and  intelligently,  or  they  were 
replaced  by  men  who  would.  He  replaced  every 
man  on  his  original  staff  and  refilled  some  posi 
tions  several  times.  He  was  learning  to  handle 
the  human  factor,  that  inexplicable  and  erratic 
element  in  all  modern  business  that  in  preventing 
all  organizations  from  becoming  perfect  machines 
prevents  them  also  from  becoming  static  and  holds 


222  THE  MAKING  OF 

the  door  open  to  that  endless  change  that  is  called 
progress.  He  made  mistakes,  corrected  them 
quickly,  experimented,  tried  new  combinations; 
and  under  his  hands  grew  a  harmonious  organiza 
tion  of  men  animated  by  a  common  purpose  who 
worked  with  him  and  for  him  with  all  the  energy 
they  possessed.  He  saw  it  with  satisfaction  and 
pride,  and  when  he  heard  that  he  was  known  in 
West  Australia  as  a  hard  and  ruthless  man  he  did 
not  deny  the  indictment.  There  was  an  echo  of 
his  childhood  in  his  grim  acceptance  of  it;  life 
was  hard,  facts  were  ruthless,  and  if  he  was  im 
placable  toward  others  he  was  not  more  sparing 
of  himself. 

Bewick,  Moreing  recognized  his  ability,  at  first 
by  letters  and  cables  of  congratulation  on  the 
results  he  was  accomplishing,  and  later  by  swift 
promotion.  There  was  a  reorganization  going 
on  above  his  head ;  Mr.  Hooper,  who  had  been  his 
superior,  left  West  Australia;  Mr.  Williams,  a 
partner  in  the  firm,  came  on  from  South  Africa  to 
take  control,  and  the  young  manager  of  the  Cool- 
gardie  office  was  given  a  junior  partnership  in  the 
local  branches  of  the  business.  All  the  West  Aus 
tralian  offices  were  put  under  his  control,  and  the 
position  carried  with  it  another  increase  in  salary. 

Such  rapid  advancement  was  heady  wine  for  a 
youth  who  still  dared  not  shave  his  beard  for  fear 
of  revealing  his  twenty-four  years.  His  grasp  of 


HERBERT  HOOVER  223 

hard,  practical  fact  kept  his  feet  steady  and  his 
mind  cool,  but  there  was  more  assurance  in  his 
gestures  and  more  authority  in  his  voice.  He 
found  it  less  necessary  to  explain  the  swift  yet 
sure-footed  reasoning  by  which  he  reached  his 
conclusions,  and  Mr.  Williams  found  his  brusk 
rapidity  disconcerting.  They  looked  at  each 
other  with  mutual  respect  across  a  chasm  of  un- 
comprehension ;  the  Englishman  with  his  Euro 
pean  education  and  traditions,  and  the  young 
American  with  his  instinct  for  brusk,  immediate 
action.  There  was  a  discord  between  them,  less  of 
character  or  mind  than  of  surface  mannerism. 
But  there  was  too  much  work  before  them  both 
for  them  to  allow  personal  idiosyncrasies  to  inter 
fere  with  it. 

Eight  offices  were  now  under  the  control  of  the 
former  manager  of  the  Coolgardie  office.  He 
worked  every  night  until  two  or  three  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  His  reputation  for  ruthlessness  in 
creased  as  he  went  through  the  organizations, 
making  them  over  to  his  own  pattern.  But  there 
were  incidents  in  his  implacable  progress  that 
were  unknown  to  West  Australia.  In  the  office  at 
Cue  he  found  the  records  in  wretched  disorder, 
and  with  the  wrath  that  an  overworked  man  feels 
for  a  negligent  incompetence  that  hinders  him  he 
sent  for  the  accountant. 

The  summons  was  answered  by  an  old  man  who 


224  THE  MAKING  OF 

faced  him  with  eyes  that  tried  to  conceal  an  ex 
tremity  of  terror.  His  white  head,  his  bent  shoul 
ders,  the  decent  patches  on  the  meager  threads  of 
an  ancient  alpaca  coat,  and  the  withered  hands 
whose  trembling  he  could  not  restrain,  said  that 
he  was  a  failure,  a  human  being  defeated  in  the 
struggle  to  live  and  tortured  by  an  existence  pro 
longed  when  his  life  had  gone  into  the  irrevocable 
past.  The  new  manager,  after  one  glance  at  him, 
put  his  hands  deep  into  his  pockets  and  stared  at 
the  desk  piled  with  papers.  There  was  no  ques 
tion  that  the  man  must  go.  The  big  business  ma 
chine  could  not  keep  in  its  mechanism  this  useless 
cog.  Great-grandfather  Eli,  master  of  his  pump- 
factory  in  West  Branch,  would  not  have  dreamed 
of  breaking  the  grip  by  which  those  old  fingers 
desperately  clung  to  food  and  shelter;  Herbert 
Hoover  himself  could  not  have  done  it  if  the  choice 
had  been  his  to  make,  but  the  vast  impersonal 
organization  that  ruled  the  Cue  office  from  the 
other  side  of  the  world,  must  be  served  imperson 
ally  and  efficiently. 

"How  old  are  you?"  he  asked. 

"  Seventy  -two, ' '  said  a  voice  that  still  held 
steady. 

"Well — don't  you  think  this  work  will  be  a  little 
too  hard  for  you  after  the  office  is  reorganized  ? ' ' 
He  had  a  sense  of  the  vast  egotism  and  cruelty 
of  youth  that  seizes  so  relentlessly,  because  it 


HERBERT  HOOVER  225 

must,  the  tasks  that  fall  from  older  hands,  but  he 
had  no  choice.  He  must  go  through  with  it. 
' '  There  is  plenty  of  time  for  you  to  look  for  some 
thing  easier  to  do,  but  I  need  a  younger  man  to — " 

He  was  stopped  by  the  old  man's  sobbing. 
There  was,  after  all,  no  gentle  way  of  putting  the 
fact,  and  before  it  the  last  remnant  of  pride  had 
gone.  The  old  man  wept,  the  wrinkled  face  ex 
posed  like  a  child's,  and  in  short  strangling  gasps 
he  begged  for  mercy,  not  for  himself,  but  for  his 
wife  in  Perth.  She  was  old,  too.  She  had  no  one 
but  him.  She  would  starve.  He  sent  her  his 
whole  salary.  He  had  tried  hard  to  keep  the  books 
right.  Nobody  wanted  him,  because  he  was  old; 
he  could  not  get  another  job.  They  had  never, 
never  in  all  their  lives  been  forced  to  accept  char 
ity,  even  when  they  were  hungry.  The  salary  was 
not  so  very  large,  and  he  would  work  harder.  He 
had  sent  it  all  to  her;  he  had  washed  his  own 
clothes  and  done  his  own  cooking  so  that  she 
might  have  it  all.  He  could  not  tell  her— 

Herbert  Hoover,  whose  ruthlessness  was  known 
from  Perth  to  the  farthest  reaches  of  the  back 
country,  spent  an  hour  comforting  him  with  gen 
tleness  and  tact.  His  words,  brief  and  steadying, 
quieted  the  old  man,  got  him  on  his  feet  again, 
and  covered  the  memory  of  that  exposure  of  his 
agony.  He  went  out  of  the  office  reassured  and 
hopeful  and  Herbert  Hoover,  before  going  on  with 


226  THE  MAKING  OF 

his  work,  expressed  his  resentment  against  fate 
in  one  angry  phrase:  "That  thing  upsets  me  hor 
ribly.7' 

He  explained  the  situation  that  night  to  two  of 
the  American  boys,  and  together  they  made  up  a 
purse  of  three  hundred  dollars,  which  he  gave  the 
old  man  as  a  parting  gift  from  the  company. 
Then  he  found  an  easy  job  for  him  in  Perth  and 
bruskly  sent  him  away  to  spend  the  rest  of  his 
days  in  comfort  with  his  wife,  while  a  younger 
man  took  the  job  of  accountant  at  Cue. 

The  new  junior  partner  was  too  busy  for  brood 
ing  over  his  own  affairs;  work  was  a  good  shield 
against  a  growing  inner  loneliness.  But  his  first 
inquiry  when  he  reached  an  office  was,  "Any 
mail?"  And  at  night  in  the  deserted  offices  or  in 
the  big  living-room  of  the  bungalow,  where  now 
part  of  the  old  crowd  from  Stanford  was  usually 
with  him,  he  sat  writing  long  letters,  trying  to 
bridge  with  words  the  thousands  of  miles  between 
him  and  California.  The  other  boys  would  get 
out  their  letters,  too,  and  the  long  silences  would 
be  disturbed  only  by  the  faint  scratching  of  pens 
and  the  lonesome-sounding  howls  of  the  wild  white 
dogs  of  the  desert. 

A  year  since  he  had  seen  Lou  Henry.  And  she 
was  always  a  popular  girl.  She  was  walking  now, 
perhaps,  in  the  cool  shadows  of  the  old  Quad, 
under  the  sandstone  arches  and  the  red-tiled  roof 


HERBERT  HOOVER  227 

glowing  against  the  blue  California  sky.  Walk 
ing  there  in  her  corduroy  skirt  and  brown  sweater, 
with  the  bright-colored  tie  beneath  the  white 
collar  of  her  blouse,  her  throat  and  cheeks  sun- 
warmed,  her  gay,  brave  eyes  shining.  The  green 
hills  of  California,  the  poppies  golden  in  the  grass, 
and  Lou  Henry  putting  one  slim  hand  on  a  fence 
and  vaulting  it,  lightly  as  a  bird!  And  three 
hundred  other  fellows  walking  the  same  paths, 
asked  to  the  same  dances,  seeing  her,  meeting  her, 
talking  to  her,  if  they  liked,  a  dozen  times  a  day. 

Well,  a  man  has  to  be  a  man,  and  stand  the  gaff. 
He  has  to  make  good  for  a  woman,  if  he  deserves 
to  have  her. 

1 '  I  'm  going  out  again  to-morrow  morning  to  the 
Sons  of  Gwalia,  boys,"  he  said. 

The  Sons  of  Gwalia  was  a  new,  almost  unknown 
mine,  two  hundred  miles  back  in  the  bush.  His 
expert  eye  had  found  in  it  signs  that  promised 
another  Kalgoorlie ;  the  cabled  report  in  code  had 
reached  London;  the  big  men  in  the  City  were 
busy.  Meantime  the  development  of  the  mine 
threatened  to  let  out  the  secret;  already  three 
rival  syndicates  in  the  field  had  wind  that  some 
where  a  new  discovery  had  been  made.  When  he 
climbed  into  the  shining  English  trap  now  a  cas 
ual  side  glance  showed  him  a  bicyclist  lounging 
on  the  other  side  of  the  street.  Eighty  miles  out 
in  the  sweltering  bush  country  the  same  man 


228  THE  MAKING  OF 

would  pass  him,  pedaling  through  the  red  dust, 
and  at  the  next  station  another  man  with  the  same 
bicycle  would  be  sitting  in  the  shade  of  a  tent  and 
curiously  enough  would  happen  to  follow  the  road 
he  took. 

It  was  a  game  of  hide-and-go-seek,  back  and 
forth  across  a  thousand  miles  of  burning  desert, 
where  mirages  of  rippling  water  and  palm-trees 
mocked  blistering  skins  and  dusty  throats  and  the 
sky  was  a  white-hot  brazen  lid  to  a  tortured  earth. 
Slipping  noiselessly  as  lizards  through  the  shrub, 
the  starveling  wild  men  watched  it,  and  marveled. 
On  the  other  side  of  the  world,  in  cool  club-rooms 
and  dim  offices  paneled  in  old  oak,  the  other  end 
of  the  game  was  being  played.  Eaw  gold  in  the 
ore,  minted  gold  in  the  vaults ;  half -naked  miners 
in  Australian  mines,  shrewd  men  in  London  stock- 
markets — the  Great  Game !  Leading  the  gasping 
bicyclists  fifty  miles  astray,  losing  them  on  the 
road  to  Mount  Margaret,  doubling  back  to  the 
cables,  he  was  part  of  the  big  machine;  no  longer 
on  its  outer  edge,  but  close,  now,  to  the  big  men 
at  the  center. 

He  played  out  his  part  and  twenty  men  in  Lou- 
don  saw  his  cleverness.  The  Sons  of  Gwalia  was 
purchased  by  Bewick,  Moreing's  London  and 
West  Australian  Exploration  Company  for  $200,- 
000.00;  it  was  capitalized  at  $300,000.00,  leaving 
a  margin  of  200,000  shares  in  the  hands  of  the 


HERBERT  HOOVER  229 

company.  Then  the  secret  broke;  the  script 
leaped  upward  and  upward  again  on  the  market, 
doubling,  trebling  in  price,  and  the  company  un 
loaded.  It  was  a  clean  profit  of  nearly  $1,500,- 
000.00  for  the  big  men,  and  they  did  not  forget  the 
young  Australian  manager  who  had  made  it  for 
them. 

The  Sons  of  Gwalia  was  still  in  their  control; 
they  turned  it  over  to  him  to  develop  and  manage, 
with  two  hundred  acres  of  adjacent  desert  which 
he  had  wisely  taken  the  precaution  to  lease  for 
them. 

His  office  was  now  a  tent  on  Mount  Leonora,  a 
commanding  height  of  seventy-eight  feet  above 
two  hundred  miles  of  desert  bush.  Around  the 
Sons  of  Gwalia  a  mushroom  mining-camp  sprang 
up  overnight ;  over  all  the  trails  converging  there 
hung  the  smoky  dust  of  travel— miners,  engineers, 
gamblers,  and  dance-hall  men  with  their  women 
hastening  to  the  new  field.  When  riding  down 
from  his  office  in  the  mornings  he  saw  the  dusty 
carts,  the  tents  going  up,  scores  of  new  faces ;  fat 
men  smoking  gold-banded  cigars,  lean  sharp-eyed 
gentlemen;  tired-eyed  girls  with  red  cheeks  and 

lips. 

< ' What  's  going  up  here!  Dance-hall?  You 
can't  stay  on  my  ground.  Get  off,  and  do  it 
quick !" 

"No,  I  will  not  give  you  room  for  a  saloon. 


230  THE  MAKING  OF 

There  's  two  hundred  acres  of  land  around  here 
where  you  can't  stay  overnight.  Don't  talk  to 
me.  I  'm  busy." 

" Chase  those  fellows  out  of  here,"  he  said  im 
patiently  to  his  manager.  "  There  's  going  to  be 
one  clean  mining-camp  in  the  world.  Our  men 
are  n't  here  to  carouse,  they  're  here  to  get  out  the 
ore." 

They  got  out  the  ore;  they  dug  out,  too,  some 
thing  else.  Making  out  reports ;  traveling  behind 
his  unicorn  team, — the  fastest  in  West  Australia, 
— over  a  territory  larger  than  the  Pacific  states, 
wrestling  with  poor  machinery,  importing  camels 
from  the  Gobi  desert  to  reduce  freight  costs ;  meet 
ing  delegations  of  rebellious  miners — he  found 
time  one  morning  to  notice  something  new  in  the 
dump  heap  beyond  the  crusher.  He  picked  it  up, 
examined  it.  "Clay,  hm?  We  '11  put  up  a  brick 
kiln  and  have  some  cool  houses  in  this  eternal 
desert." 

He  ordered  fire-brick,  cement,  machinery  for 
making  ice;  he  put  the  men  to  work,  drew  the 
plans,  put  in  a  manager  to  superintend  the  job. 
Six  brick  houses  arose,  double-walled,  double- 
roofed,  with  wide  verandas ;  built  of  red  brick  with 
neat  white-brick  trimmings,  for  there  were  two 
kinds  of  clay  in  the  mine.  One  of  the  buildings 
was  a  club-house,  fan-cooled,  supplied  with  cold 
water,  furnished  with  big  chairs,  long  tables 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  231 

and  book-shelves.  "G.  B."  Wilson,  Deane  Mit 
chell,  all  the  boys  in  the  fields,  drove  fifty  miles  out 
of  their  way  to  bring  in  magazines  and  books. 
"Encourage  the  miners  to  use  the  place, "  he  told 
his  managers.  "It  's  built  for  them.  I  want  to 
get  them  interested  in  their  jobs;  there  are  all 
kinds  of  technical  mining-journals  there.  Or 
they  can  sit  around  where  it  's  cool  and  play  cards 
if  they  want  to,  if  they  don't  turn  it  into  a  gam 
bling-house." 

He  was  buying  a  fifth-interest  in  a  new  mine, 
highly  recommended  to  him  by  two  men  in  whom 
he  had  confidence.  The  ore  specimens  looked 
good;  he  did  not  have  time  to  examine  the  mine 
himself.  He  was  building  cyanide  mills  for  the 
company;  getting  in  machinery  for  a  new  fifty- 
stamp  mill  to  replace  the  old  ten-stamp  one  at 
Sons  of  Gwalia;  firing  men,  taking  on  new  ones, 
fighting  the  sly  selling  of  whisky  on  his  properties. 
He  bought  the  mine  and  sent  a  man  to  manage  it. 
If  it  paid  as  it  promised  he  would  be  able  to  get  out 
of  Australia,  back  to  God's  country,  back  to  Cal 
ifornia  and  the  girl. 

But  the  mill-run  was  not  as  good  as  the  sam 
ples.  The  work  went  on,  and  it  hardly  paid  ex 
penses.  Then  it  was  showing  a  deficit.  Eunning 
across  Wilson  down  in  Kalgoorlie,  he  asked  him 
to  run  up  and  take  a  look  at  the  property;  some 
thing  seemed  to  be  wrong. 


232  THE  MAKING  OF 

He  was  sitting  at  his  desk  late  one  evening,  fig 
uring  up  running-costs  in  percentages,  when  the 
sound  of  wheels  came  through  the  open  door  and 
Wilson,  travel-stained  and  dusty,  appeared  in  the 
doorway. 

"'Lo,H.  C.l" 

' '  Hello !  Glad  to  see  you.  You  know  where  the 
water  is.  Help  yourself.  If  you  want  towels  yell 
for  'em." 

His  figures  showed  that  he  had  made  a  record 
in  low  running-costs.  Sons  of  Gwalia  was  making 
a  clear  profit  of  twenty  thousand  dollars  a  month ; 
with  the  new  mill  it  would  run  one  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand.  He  looked  up  at  the  sound  of 
returning  steps. 

^Feeling  better,  G.  B.f" 

"Fine.  Lord !  people  at  home  don't  know  what 
a  bath  is!  Toss  me  a  cigar.  Thanks."  Wilson 
settled  comfortably  into  a  chair  and  struck  a 
match.  "How  's  everything?" 

"Pretty  good."  Hoover  lighted  his  own  cigar 
and  leaned  back.  "Any  news  down  your  way?" 

"Been  up  to  see  our  mine." 

"Yes?" 

"Salted." 

Hoover  blew  a  smoke  ring  at  the  ceiling.  A 
fortune,  the  green  hills  of  California,  and  some 
other  hopes  dissolved  into  nothingness  with  it. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  233 

1 '  Well,  the  sons  of  guns !  And  I  'd  have  trusted 
those  boys  with  my  bank-account.  Why,  G.  B., 
they  were  friends  of  mine !  There  is  n  't  any 
doubt  about  it?" 

Wilson  laid  two  specimens  on  the  desk.  "This 
one  's  from  the  crusher  up  there;  see  the  chryso- 
calla?  It  's  the  same  stuff  they  showed  us.  I  Ve 
been  clear  through  the  mine,  sampled  it  every 
where;  not  another  trace  of  chrysocalla  in  it. 
That  second  specimen  's  taken  from  the  Morning- 
glory,  the  other  mine  those  chaps  owned,  you  re 
member.  I  went  down  there  and  asked  if  there  'd 
ever  been  a  shipment  of  that  ore  sent  out ;  manager 
told  me  there  was  one  consignment  shipped,  just 
before  the  boys  sold.  He  didn't  know  where  it 
went,  but  you  can  draw  your  own  conclusions. ' ' 

"Well,  there  certainly  are  some  scoundrels  in 
the  world!  I  guess  the  joke  's  on  us." 

A  little  desultory  talk.  Figures.  Operating- 
costs.  News  of  the  field,  of  the  stock-market  at 
Perth.  Cigar  smoke  floating  in  motionless  layers 
in  the  breathless  air ;  the  hot  dark  desert  brooding 
outside  the  windows.  A  wild  man  from  the  bush 
slipping  past  the  doorway  like  a  shadow,  thin 
limbs  no  larger  than  a  monkey's,  bright  peering 
eyes,  bushy  hair,  a  bleached  white  bone  through 
the  nostrils,  all  seen  for  a  second  and  vanishing. 

"The  beggars  are  getting  tamer." 


234  THE  MAKING  OF 

"Yes.  Quite  a  lot  hanging  around.  They  try 
out  their  boomerangs  on  the  ducks  at  the  tailings 
dump. ' ' 

"Got  another  match  ?" 

Silence  again,  and  the  smoke  curling.  Good  to 
have  a  moment's  rest.  Eotten  feeling,  that  about 
the  mine,  and  the  men  he  had  trusted. 

"Say,  H.  C.,  you  know  the  Associated,  down 
at  Kalgoorlie?  They  're  getting  out  a  lot  of  good 
ore  lately.  Working  full  blast.  I  'm  wonder 
ing—" 

The  legs  of  his  chair  came  down  abruptly.  He 
leaned  forward,  alert. 

"Associated?  That  lies  between  two  blocks 
of  our  Aroya.  Which  way  are  they  working?" 
' '  Well,  if  their  lode  runs  north  or  south- 
Back  in  the  game  again,  the  Great  Game !  The 
matching  of  wits ;  quick  mind  against  quick  mind ; 
watching  the  other  fellow;  seizing  unguarded 
openings,  down  there  in  the  farthest  outlands,  and 
moving  with  his  movements  the  kings  of  the  City 
and  the  thousands  of  pawns  behind  them.  "If 
they  Ve  struck  something  big,  it  means  that 
Aroya  11  boom  when  the  secret  's  out.  Get  after 
it,  G.  B.  Find  out  what  they  're  doing." 

Six  weeks  later,  swinging  around  the  desert 
circuit  again  on  his  job  as  consulting  engineer,  he 
came  into  the  Coolgardie  office  late  at  night,  tired, 
looking  for  mail.  The  box-like  room,  hot  as  an 


HERBERT  HOOVER  235 

oven,  was  deserted.  He  sat  reading  for  the 
second  time  the  letter  he  had  wanted,  when  Wil 
son  came  in,  bringing  an  air  of  controlled  excite 
ment. 

6 <  They  told  me  I  'd  catch  you  here.  Well,  H.  C., 
I  Ve  got  it !  Been  working  as  shift-boss  for  the 
Associated.  They  're  following  a  three-foot  lode 
straight  into  Aroya.  I  Ve  been  surveying  all 
night;  they  're  within  twenty-five  feet  of  the 
Aroya  line." 

' ' Where  's  the  code-book?" 

He  worked  out  the  cablegram  in  pencil,  Wilson 
slipping  a  fresh  sheet  of  carbon  between  two 
blanks  and  typing  it  out  as  he  read  it  aloud.  A 
cablegram  telling  the  London  office  to  get  control 
of  Aroya,  quickly.  They  caught  the  telegraph 
man  just  before  he  closed  the  office,  and  it  was 
on  its  way  to  the  daylighted  side  of  the  world. 
Four  hours  later  the  big  men  in  the  City 
would  be  quietly  gathering  up  Aroya  on  the 
London  stock-market,  preparing  for  another  big 
flotation. 

4 'That  's  a  good  piece  of  work,"  he  said. 

His  reward  came  quickly.  Mr.  Hoover  was 
offered  a  choice;  he  could  take  over  the  entire 
management  of  their  West  Australian  interests,  or 
he  could  go  to  China. 

He  did  not  wait  for  a  letter  from  California. 
He  cabled.  White  women  could  live  comfortably 


236  THE  MAKING  OF 

in  China,  in  Peking  or  Tien-Tsin.  There  were 
modern  hotels  there,  shade,  water.  There  were 
shops  and  theaters  and  companions  to  fill  in  the 
times,  that  could  not  be  avoided,  when  a  mining 
engineer  must  go  alone  into  hardships  and  danger. 
He  had  made  good;  for  a  long  time  he  had  been 
able  to  support  a  wife,  now  he  could  take  her  to 
a  country  in  which  she  could  live.  Still,  it  was  a 
great  deal  to  ask  her  to  face — the  life  of  an  engi 
neer  's  wife  half  a  world  away  from  her  home  and 
friends.  Ah,  but  she  had  never  lacked  grit,  that 
girl! 

The  cablegram  would  reach  her  at  ten  o'clock 
in  Monterey.  She  would  be  playing  tennis,  per 
haps,  short  white  skirt  and  white  middy  and  flung- 
back  head  vivid  against  green  palms  and  pepper-.- 
trees.  Two  years  since  he  had  seen  her.  Noth 
ing  but  her  gay,  fine  letters  between  them  for 
twenty-four  long  months.  If  she  answered  the 
cable  at  once  he  could  know  that  night.  Perhaps 
she  would  want  to  think  about  it.  Cable  offices 
at  home  closed  at  six  o  'clock.  If  she  waited  until 
after  six — 

But  the  cablegram  came  that  night. 

The  company's  business  was  all  in  order.  Ten 
days  would  gather  up  the  last  new  detail  into 
compact  shape,  ready  for  the  new  manager.  His 
own  personal  affairs — but  he  had  been  paying  no 


HERBERT  HOOVER  237 

attention  to  them;  he  had  been  too  busy.  Hotel 
bills,  livery  bills,  laundry,  small  sums  of  money 
he  had  lent,  were  scattered  over  half  the  continent. 
Brokers  in  Perth  had  buying  and  selling  orders  of 
his ;  small  blocks  of  stock  in  this  mine  and  that. 
A  dozen  banks  held  the  remnants  of  little  checking- 
accounts  ;  he  did  not  know  exactly  how  much.  He 
could  estimate  approximately  his  balance  in  the 
San  Francisco  bank;  Lester  Hinsdale  still  held  a 
power  of  attorney  there  and  seven  boys  and  girls 
were  now  paying  their  way  through  college  from 
that  account,  while  others  drew  against  it  for 
loans  now  and  then.  A  hopeless  muddle,  his  own 
affairs. 

Never  mind.  There  was  no  time  to  give  them. 
Wilson  could  attend  to  that.  Memorandum  books, 
check  stubs,  I  0  U's,  brokers7  statements — all  of 
them  in  one  pile.  ' i  Straighten  it  out  for  me,  will 
you?  Good-by.  See  you  in  China. " 

He  was  off  for  London,  on  the  journey  that 
would  circle  the  world  again.  The  world  was 
after  all  a  small  place — Stanford  on  a  larger  scale. 
The  big  business  offices  were  only  the  Oregon 
Land  Company's  office  gigantically  magnified;  the 
same  conflicting  desires,  the  same  visions  of  build 
ing,  the  same  greeds,  the  same  principles.  A 
man's  power  is  in  proportion  to  the  width  of  his 
horizon;  a  small  man  is  a  small  man  because  his 
vision  ends  within  the  little  circle  of  his  fancied 


238  THE  MAKING  OF 

limitations.  He  knew,  now,  that  nothing  smaller 
than  the  wide  curve  of  the  earth  restrained  him. 
Ceylon  again;  Port  Said;  the  shores  of  Italy; 
Marseilles;  London.  He  walked  with  confidence 
into  the  offices  that  had  awed  him  once.  He  had 
made  good;  he  was  going  on  to  a  bigger  job  where 
again  he  would  make  good.  "  Chief  Engineer 
for  the  Director-General  of  Mines  for  the  Chinese 
Empire !"  A  title  to  make  a  young  Ameri 
can  mining  engineer  grin.  To  make  him  thought 
ful,  too.  There  was  something  bigger  in  it  than 
merely  mining  engineering.  There  was  the 
awakening,  the  stirring  of  the  yellow  races, 
prodded  from  slumber  by  the  goad  of  West 
ern  commercial  greed,  the  arousing  of  long- 
quiescent,  unmeasured  forces  in  the  East.  The 
stripling  Emperor  of  China  had  been  taught 
Western  ideas  by  missionaries.  Kwang-Hsu  was 
a  Chinese  radical,  determined  to  overthrow  the  old 
civilization  of  China,  to  replace  it  with  a  new, 
modern  state.  The  old  empress,  his  aunt,  op 
posed  him.  But  she  had  given  charge  of  the  im 
perial  mines  to  a  favorite,  Chang  Yen  Mao,  and 
Chang  Yen  Mao  desired  to  import  Western  min 
ing  methods.  He  had  applied  for  help  to  Bewick, 
Moreing,  the  great  London  firm  that  developed 
and  managed  mines ;  they  had  agreed  to  lend  him 
two  young  mining  engineers  from  their  staff. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  239 

Hoover  was  to  be  in  charge,  representing  Bewick, 
Moreing,  and  working  for  Chang  Yen  Mao. 

Two  weeks  in  London,  learning  these  things  and 
others.  Then  away  once  more  on  the  long  flight 
home,  to  California  and  the  girl.  Three  thousand 
miles  of  water,  three  thousand  miles  of  land — the 
green  spring  hills  of  California  again !  Then  the 
palms,  the  sleeping  old  Spanish  Missions,  the 
white  curving  sandy  beaches  about  the  blue  Bay 
of  Monterey — and  Lou  Henry. 

Lou  Henry  a  little  breathless,  wide-eyed,  but 
very  glad,  presenting  him  proudly  to  the  family 
in  the  serene  old  house  among  the  aged  pepper- 
trees  and  roses  of  old  Monterey.  Lou  Henry's 
father  and  mother,  the  dignified  banker  and  his 
smiling,  tranquil  wife,  confronting  with  what  com 
posure  they  might  this  youth  of  twenty-four  who 
had  stopped  for  a  moment  on  his  race  around  the 
world  to  snatch  away  their  daughter.  Quiet  talks 
with  the  father  on  the  shaded  porch ;  moments  of 
swift,  warm  emotion  with  the  mother.  They  liked 
him.  But  his  eyes  were  for  Lou  Henry. 

Ten  days  among  the  dreamy  memories  of  days 
when  California  was  young.  White  moonlight  on 
the  old  tiled  roofs ;  sun-steeped  afternoons  on  the 
quiet  streets.  A  sense  of  rest,  of  peace,  of  the 
slow,  unceasing  flow  of  time  into  eternity.  Only 
ten  days.  The  job  in  China  waiting.  Passage  en- 


240  THE  MAKING  OF 

gaged  on  the  boat.  Cables  to  Wilson  for  money. 
Lou  Henry,  why  need  it  take  so  long? 

Ten  days  is,  after  all,  a  very  short  time  in  which 
to  take  a  girl  away  from  all  that  she  has  ever 
known.  The  old  friends  must  be  there  to  see  her 
go;  there  must  be  roses  and  music  and  the  loved 
old  Mission  priest  performing  a  modified  service 
for  this  daughter  of  old  Monterey  who  was  not 
of  the  faith  and  whose  lover  was  a  Quaker.  Ten 
days?  Impetuous  young  man,  in  the  golden  years 
that  Monterey  remembers,  the  wedding-feast  alone 
made  merry  the  hours  of  thirty  days  and  nights ! 

But  he  had  been  working  through  three  years  to 
ward  this  day,  the  day  of  sunshine  and  laughter 
and  tears.  Soft  stately  music.  The  old  priest  in 
his  robes.  Lou  Henry  in  white,  with  fresh-gath 
ered  orange-blossoms  in  her  hair.  The  ring  on 
her  finger  at  last,  and  a  look  in  her  eyes  like  his 
mother's.  Before  God,  as  his  father  was  good  to 
his  mother,  he  will  be  good  and  brave  and  strong 
for  her  sake. 

Three  years  of  dreaming,  and  now  the  reality 
itself  is  like  a  dream.  Incredible  that  he  had  won 
so  much!  Laughter,  pretty  speeches,  colored 
gowns,  sunshine  on  the  lawn,  whirling  about  him, 
dream-like.  Pepper-trees  and  old  Mission  walls, 
blue  waters  beyond  the  curving  beach,  palms  and 
roses  and  green  hills.  Ah,  the  sharp,  hard  reality 
again — a  train !  The  familiar  clang  of  engine 


HERBERT  HOOVER  241 

bells,  the  quiver  running  through  the  cars  and 
settling  into  the  steady  vibration  of  speed.  Mont 
erey  fallen  behind  him  like  the  dream  it  was.  San 
Francisco  ahead  and  the  big  gray  ship  waiting  at 
the  pier  to  take  him  out  to  his  job  in  China.  To 
take  them  out  to  his  job  in  China ;  for  here  is  Lou 
Henry  beside  him,  going  out  with  him  to  stand 
beside  him  now,  forever. 


CHAPTER  V 

AFTERNOON  on  Race-course  Road  in  the 
foreign  quarter  of  Tien-Tsin.  A  wide  elm- 
bordered  road  edged  with  high  brick  walls.  Rick 
shaws  drawn  by  trotting  yellow  men,  carrying 
English  ladies  to  tea  at  the  Astor  House.  Sleek 
horses  cantering  past,  ridden  by  jockeys  in  red 
and  green  jackets  on  their  way  to  exercise  their 
mounts  at  the  race-course.  A  serene,  suave  at 
mosphere  faintly  flavored  with  the  spice  of  the 
Orient.  A  little  island  of  foreigners  set  haughtily 
in  the  vast  swarming  yellow  land  of  China. 

Observing  these  things,  Herbert  Hoover,  aged 
twenty-four,  mining  engineer  for  the  Chinese  Em 
pire,  rode  in  state  to  his  first  ceremonious  inter 
view  with  Chang  Yen  Mao,  Director  General  of 
Mines  and  Railways.  He  sat  uncomfortably, 
arms  clasping  blue  serge  knees,  on  the  silken 
carpeted  floor  of  a  Peking  cart  drawn  by  a 
mule.  Above  his  head  stretched  a  ceiling  of 
heavy  silk  embroidered  in  colors  and  gold;  win 
dows  of  sheerest  silk  gauze  concealed  his  august 
person  from  the  vulgar  gaze,  yet  were  transpar 
ent  to  his  eyes.  The  mule  trotted  with  a  jingle  of 

242 


HERBERT  HOOVER  243 

silver  harness;  a  fringed  silken  canopy  shaded 
him;  before  him  ran  an  escort  of  ten  Chinese 
soldiers. 

They  turned  a  corner,  and  before  them  stately 
towers  of  red  brick  rising  above  the  high  wall  of 
a  compound  proclaimed  a  mandarin's  residence. 
At  a  decorous  distance  from  the  curved  great 
gates  the  Peking  cart  stopped,  waiting  while 
due  notice  of  their  arrival  was  carried  to  Chang 
Yen  Mao. 

"Strange  ideas  of  business  these  people  have, 
G.  B.,"  he  said  to  Wilson,  who  sat  beside  him  on  a 
dragon-embroidered  cushion.  "Comes  of  being 
an  old,  old  race :  they  remember  so  many  centuries. 
Ever  notice  that  it  ys  old  people  who  care  about 
customs  and  forms?  We  '11  have  a  lot  of  preju 
dice  to  overcome  here.  And  delays!  We 
mustn't  say  a  word  about  business  this  visit  or 
we  '11  break  the  Chinese  what-do-you-call-it. " 

"Chinese  kuei  chu,"  said  Wilson,  struggling 
with  the  quicksilver  vowels.  "What  does  that 
mean,  exactly,  in  English?" 

"Kuei-chii,"  repeated  the  interpreter.  "It 
means — how  do  you  say? — ceremony.  In  English 
it  is  these  words  exactly — '  square  and  com 
passes.'  " 

"Square  and  compasses?  What  's  that  got  to 
ido  with  ceremony?" 

"It  is  very,  very  old  Chinese  word,"  said  the 


244  THE  MAKING  OF 

interpreter  and  shrugged  the  question  from  his 
sloping  shoulders. 

" Masonry,  by  all  that  's  ancient!  It  must  be 
that,  H.  C.  How  else  would  you  account  for  it? 
Masonry  came  down  from  fche  North  with  the 
builders  of  King  Solomon's  temple;  why 
should  n  't  it  have  come  out  of  China  ?  If  I  find  a 
high-up  Chinese  mandarin  who  's  my  Masonic 
brother,  then  will  you  admit  we  ought  to  learn 
Chinese  to  do  business  here?" 

"I  'm  not  taking  any  bets  on  that,"  Hoover  re 
plied  in  the  same  jocular  tone.  "I  don't  care  how 
long  they  Ve  been  Masons,  if  they  '11  let  us  de 
velop  their  mines.  No,  we  can  get  along  well 
enough  with  interpreters.  We  're  going  to  be  too 
busy  to  take  on  a  language  like  Chinese." 

The  messenger  returned ;  Chang  Yen  Mao  would 
await  their  coming  at  his  gates. 

They  dismounted  and  approached  the  pagoda- 
roofed  gateway  on  foot,  between  the  drawn-up 
lines  of  their  soldier  escort.  Before  the  tall 
screen  carved  with  dragons  that  shut  off  the  view 
of  the  compound  beyond,  Chang  Yen  Mao  stood 
grave  and  stately,  his  silken-robed  servants  bow 
ing  on  either  hand.  The  interpreter  uttered  the 
proper  words  of  greeting ;  he  replied  with  solemn 
courtesy. 

A  tall,  impassive  Chinese  was  Chang  Yen  Mao. 
The  quick  American  eye  took  in  his  six  feet  of  live 


HERBERT  HOOVER  245^ 

muscle,  his  strong  shoulders,  his  straight  carriage. 
For  all  his  fifty  years  and  his  suavely  folded 
hands,  not  a  man  to  be  easily  handled  in  a  scrap. 
Nor  in  business,  either;  not  with  that  lidless  eye 
that  saw  everything  and  nothing  at  once.  He  had 
known  many  things  in  his  time,  that  man.  A 
coolie  lad  born  in  a  starving  village  on  the  banks 
of  the  Pei-ho  River,  he  had  in  his  childhood 
watched  the  great  silken-canopied  boat  of  the 
empress  go  slowly  over  the  yellow  water,  pro 
pelled  by  long  sweeps  of  red-lacquered  oars;  he 
had  gazed  at  the  two  eyes  of  lacquer  and  pearl  on 
its  prow,  the  teak-wood  cabins  carved  and  inlaid 
and  shuttered  with  painted  gauzes,  the  gold- 
embroidered  robes  and  jeweled  fingers  and  proud 
two-eyed  peacock  feathers  of  the  courtiers  who 
sat  on  the  deck  drinking  tea  from  tiny  priceless 
cups,  while  servants  stirred  the  scented  air  with 
slow'movements  of  great  fans  and  musicians  wove 
a  silver  thread  of  harmony  through  their  medita 
tions.  Ten  years  passed  before  the  boat  of  the 
empress  passed  that  way  again,  but  when  it  came 
the  coolie  lad  was  ready.  On  the  low  muddy  bank 
in  the  sunshine  he  stood,  a  slim  youth  erect  and 
steel-muscled,  two  huge  two-edged  swords  making 
rings  of  silver  fire  around  him.  All  that  skilled 
Chinese  swordsmen  and  famous  jugglers  had  ever 
done  he  did,  and  more,  sending  a  voiceless  prayer 
across  the  yellow  water  to  the  power  behind  the 


246  THE  MAKING  OF 

silken  gauzes.  His  prayer  was  answered;  the 
empress  summoned  him.  He  bowed  low  to  the 
polished  deck  before  her  cabin,  in  the  midst  of  the 
court,  and  her  voice  came  from  it,  making  him 
Master  of  the  Imperial  Stables. 

He  taught  the  young  emperor,  Tung-chili,  how 
to  ride.  Who  shall  say  how  the  accident  occurred 
that  would  have  left  empty  the  Dragon  Throne  had 
not  Chang  Yen  Mao  been  quick  and  ready  to  save 
the  Heaven-Born?  In  the  great  palaces  of  the 
Forbidden  City  the  wise  courtiers  said  nothing; 
nothing  could  be  proved.  Chang  Yen  Mao  had 
saved  the  boy.  And  he  had  been  made  Chamber 
lain  of  the  Court. 

He  was  Chamberlain  of  the  Court  when  the 
young  emperor  died,  and  China  had  no  ruler.  It 
was  night,  and  the  great  gates  of  Peking  were 
closed.  Without  the  walls,  at  his  palace  in  the 
country,  was  the  little  three-year-old  Kwang-Hsu, 
nephew  of  the  empress.  Eight  hours  before  the 
gates  could  be  opened.  Much  may  be  done  in 
eight  hours,  in  the  whispering  walls  of  an  imperial 
palace  where  an  emperor  lies  dead  and  only  a 
woman  stands  alone  against  fierce  ambitions. 
The  empress  sent  in  haste  for  Chang  Yen  Mao. 
He  listened,  and  bowed,  and  withdrew.  In  the 
clothing  of  a  servant  he  slipped  through  the 
Peking  streets,  over  the  wall,  then  across  the 
fields  to  the  country  place  of  Kwang-Hsu,  and 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  247 

raced  back  through  the  night  with  the  boy  in  his 
arms.  A  trusted  servant  watching  from  the  top 
of  the  towering  wall  let  down  a  rope,  and  some 
how,  in  the  darkness,  with  the  heir  to  all  China 
bound  on  his  back,  Chang  Yen  Mao  did  what  had 
never  been  done — he  scaled  the  city  wall  of  Peking. 
Dawn  found  the  court  decorous  and  calm,  the 
little  Kwang-Hsu  proclaimed  the  emperor,  the  Di 
vinely  Appointed,  the  Son  of  Heaven,  and  the 
empress  dowager  began  her  undisputed  reign. 

These  were  the  tales  rumor  whispered  of  the 
devious  years  through  which  the  coolie  lad  of  the 
river  village  had  come  to  hold  in  his  hands  all  the 
wealth  of  China's  mines.  Decidedly,  he  was  a 
man  of  power  and  purpose,  not  to  be  lightly  re 
garded  by  a  young  American  mining  engineer  as 
he  stood  calm  in  his  palace  gates  replying  in  slid 
ing,  elusive  Chinese  to  the  interpreter's  greeting. 

In  honor  of  his  distinguished  guests  he  wore 
his  garments  of  state;  the  gown  of  peacock-blue 
brocaded  silk  edged  with  wave-ripples  of  rose  and 
emerald  and  purple  that  fell  over  white-soled  black 
velvet  boots  so  tall  as  almost  to  hide  the  silken 
trousers  bound  with  gold-embroidered  ribbon. 
From  his  neck  hung  the  long  chain  of  a  hundred 
and  one  flawless  amber  beads.  His  hands  were 
folded  in  the  wide  sleeves  of  a  coat  of  heavy  brown 
silk  edged  with  deep  bands  of  sable,  and  the  high 
crown-shaped  winter  hat  was  of  sable  also,  topped 


248  THE  MAKING  OF 

with  emerald  silk  and  a  red  fringe.  Above  it 
glowed  the  large  ruby-colored  crystal  ball  of  a 
Number  One  Mandarin  holding  the  green  jade 
tube  from  which  depended  the  two-eyed  peacock 
feather. 

The  new  engineer  said  hastily  to  the  inter 
preter:  "Tell  him  that  if  we  don't  do  the 
proper  thing  it  's  because  we  don't  know  the 
Chinese  customs,  not  because  we  are  discourte 
ous.  " 

Chang  Yen  Mao  smiled  gravely.  Then  with 
dignity  he  unfolded  his  hands  and  held  out  the 
right  one,  making  ceremonious  the  strange  Amer 
ican  hand-shake.  So  far  as  he  could  he  would 
meet  half-way  the  new  thing  he  had  brought  to 
China — the  ugly,  barbarous  but  efficient  West. 
On  his  thumb  gleamed  the  large  ring  of  three- 
colored  jade ;  symbol  that  he  belonged  to  that  high 
and  honorable  rank  privileged  to  draw  against 
the  right  thumb  the  twanging  bowstring  of  an 
archer. 

"May  the  honorable  guest  deign  to  enter  my 
humble  abode,"  he  said,  stepping  aside  that  the 
Americans  might  pass  around  the  tall  carved 
screen.  This  was  not  to  be  done  at  once ;  so  much 
Herbert  Hoover  had  been  forewarned. 

"No,  I  can't  do  anything  like  that.  I  will  go 
after  you,"  he  protested.  And  all  this  had  to  be 
gone  through  not  only  to-day,  but  to-morrow  and 


HERBERT  HOOVER  249 

the  next  day,  before  he  could  even  begin  to  talk 
about  mining! 

He  allowed  himself  at  last  to  be  pushed  gently 
around  the  edge  of  the  screen,  only  to  confront  a 
second,  more  richly  ornamented  than  the  first,  and 
again  to  protest,  to  urge  that  he  must  follow  his 
host,  to  yield  gracefully — and  to  face  a  third 
screen  !  And  he  saw  that  the  obstacles  to  mining 
in  China  were  harder  to  conquer  than  the  Aus 
tralian  desert,  being  so  yielding,  so  suave,  so  in 
tricately  baffling.  A  maze,  in  which  one  could 
exhaust  all  his  energy  in  furiously  pressing  for 
ward,  only  to  find  himself  where  he  had  started. 

He  crossed  the  wide,  cool  compound,  shaded  by 
aged  trees  whose  every  bough  was  formed  to  fit 
a  pattern,  ornamented  by  lotus  pools  where  huge 
goldfish  trailed  rainbow-colored  gauzes  through 
the  clear  water.  Square  bowls  of  old  blue  pottery 
held  cunningly  chosen  pebbles  and  lily  bulbs. 
Strange  dog-like  creatures  of  bronze  sat  beneath 
the  trees.  Through  the  open  doors  of  the  many 
low  Chinese  houses  that  closed  in  the  compound 
he  caught  glimpses  of  rich  embroideries,  filagreed 
teak-wood  screens  inset  with  mother-of-pearl,  and 
curiously  wrought  bronze  bowls  from  which  the 
delicate  smoke  of  incense  curled.  Many  Chinese 
servants  moved  silently  among  them  on  padded 
slippers.  But  the  state  palace  of  Chang  Yen  Mao 
was  all  European,  from  its  tall  red-brick  walls  to 


250  THE  MAKING  OF 

the  white  marble  floor  and  fireplaces  of  the  huge 
reception  room  that  opened  on  a  complete  Euro 
pean  theater  with  velvet-curtained  stage,  Brus 
sels-carpeted  aisles,  and  stiff  rows  of  varnished 
wooden  seats.  The  drawing-room,  too,  boasted 
lace  curtains,  shining  hardwood  floor,  and  papered 
walls  against  which  the  imported,  plush-uphol 
stered  chairs  were  drawn  up  in  Chinese  fashion, 
the  largest  in  the  center  of  the  eastern  wall  and 
the  others  ranged  in  order  of  size  entirely  around 
the  room. 

Another  interval  of  polite  protestation.  The 
guest  must  be  offered  the  seat  of  honor ;  he  must 
refuse  to  take  it,  indicating  his  proper  place  to 
be  the  smaller  chair  beside  it ;  Chang  must  avow 
that  he  himself  should  sit  in  the  lowest  place.  The 
polite  controversy  must  end  at  last  in  a  gentle 
scuffle,  the  American  allowing  himself  to  be 
pushed  into  the  large  chair.  Then,  after  a  decor 
ous  pause,  conversation.  Courteous  nothings,  cer 
emoniously  uttered ;  above  all  things,  no  mention 
of  business. 

Servants  noiselessly  placed  before  them  high 
teak-wood  tables  and  brought  lacquered  trays  set 
with  rice-patterned  tea-bowls  and  dishes  of  lichi 
nuts,  preserved  ginger,  and  poppy-seed  cakes, 
From  large  copper  kettles  the  freshly  boiling 
water  was  poured  on  the  fragrant  tea-leaves,  and 
over  each  bowl  was  placed  the  fragile  china  lid 


HERBERT  HOOVER  251 

intended  to  preserve  the  aroma — a  bit  of  China 
which  uncouth  Danish  traders  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  ignorant  of  the  niceties  of  life,  had  been 
unable  to  explain  at  home,  so  that  Danish  house 
wives  had  put  it  beneath  the  cup  and  created  the 
ugly  European  saucer. 

"Will  the  guest  deign  to  taste  my  unworthy 
tea?"  Chang  urged.  But  the  guest  would  not; 
he  could  not,  for  when  he  tasted  the  tea  he  would 
end  the  interview.  He  must  courteously  refuse, 
and  be  urged  again,  and  again  refuse,  while  across 
the  teak-wood  tables  the  two  men  measured  each 
other,  storing  away  impressions  to  be  meditated 
upon  before  the  interview  at  which  they  would 
discuss  business. 

"Why  make  haste ?"  said  the  calm  face  of 
Chang,  immobile  behind  the  drooping  gray  mus 
taches  and  round  pencil  of  beard  that  touched  his 
lower  lip  with  an  accent  of  dignity.  "The  river 
of  the  centuries  passes  slowly.  There  have  been 
ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  years,  and  there 
will  be  ten  thousand  times  that  number.  One  man 
is  a  snowflake  on  an  ocean  of  time ;  his  affairs  are 
of  no  moment.  We  live ;  we  shall  die ;  others  will 
come  after  us,  living  and  dying.  Let  us  be  calm." 

"No  wonder  twenty  centuries  haven't  devel 
oped  China's  mines!"  the  American  thought. 
Clever  man,  though,  this  Chinese.  The  empress 
had  given  him  the  management  of  the  empire's 


252  THE  MAKING  OF 

mining,  a  mark  of  personal  favor  which  meant 
that  the  mines  were  virtually  Chang's  as  long  as 
he  stood  in  the  good  graces  of  the  court.  Chang 
had  been  wise  enough  to  know  that  energetic 
Western  management  would  multiply  his  income 
many  times,  and  he  had  been  shrewd  enough  to 
ask  Bewick,  Moreing  Company  to  lend  him  the 
services  of  a  good  engineer.  A  delicate  situation 
for  a  young  man  of  twenty-four,  standing  as  a  link 
between  the  stock-markets  of  London  and  the 
mazes  of  Oriental  intrigue  that  surrounded  the 
Dragon  Throne.  Imperialistic  trade  of  England, 
wanting  a  foothold  in  China ;  wily  Oriental,  grasp 
ing  at  the  advantages  of  the  crude  Western  indus 
trialism,  yet  vainly  hoping  to  hold  in  the  same 
hand  the  old  traditions,  the  arts  and  culture  and 
beauty  of  China's  autocracy. 

They  drank  the  pale,  subtly  flavored  tea.  The 
interview  was  ended,  with  bows,  with  flowery, 
evasive,  ceremonious  speeches.  He  passed 
through  the  compound,  past  the  lotus  pools,  the 
swarming  Chinese  houses,  the  silently  watching 
garden  gods.  The  Peking  cart  and  the  escort  of 
soldiers  were  waiting. 

"Well,  we  go  through  this  again,  and  then  the 
next  time  we  '11  be  able  to  get  down  to  cases.  At 
least  we  can  arrange  a  trip  to  look  at  the  mines. 
Ask  that  coachman  out  there  on  the  shafts  if  he 
can't  hurry  up  that  mule,  will  you?" 


HERBERT  HOOVER  253 

Back  through  the  crowded  streets  of  shops,  the 
narrow  ways  crowded  with  palanquins,  rickshaws, 
trotting  Chinese  coolies,  flat  paper  parasols ;  past 
the  gold-beaters '  shops  and  the  basket-makers' 
and  the  windows  glowing  with  jewels,  embroider 
ies,  ancient  carved  ivories,  and  many  colored  silks. 
Back  to  the  Astor  House  -and  the  girl  who  was  no 
longer  a  dream  in  faraway  California.  Mrs.  Her 
bert  C.  Hoover,  now,  with  him  on  their  honeymoon 
in  China. 

Moments  of  moonlight  on  the  balconies  of  the 
Astor  House,  snatched  hours  of  walking  together 
through  the  lantern-lighted  streets  of  old  Tien- 
Tsin,  in  the  pungent  incense-heavy  air,  listening 
to  strange  wailing,  crashing  music  among  the  lilies 
of  the  Chinese  New  Year,  while  the  great  Dragon- 
Parade  went  by.  Moments  and  emotions  never  to 
be  forgotten,  building  a  new  foundation  for  ambi 
tions  and  for  work. 

Lou  Henry  had  her  own  industrious  plans.  Let 
it  not  be  forgotten,  sir,  that  she  herself  was  a  geol 
ogist  of  no  small  ability!  She  was  fascinated  by 
the  problems  of  mining  in  China;  eager  to  be  at 
them  herself ;  poring  over  books  and  reports  with 
him  or  while  he  was  away.  She  intended  to  trace 
and  map  the  geology  of  a  most  interesting  part  of 
China.  And  she  would  fain  set  out  with  her  hus 
band  and  Wilson  on  their  first  trip  to  see  the  mines. 
But  alas  for  the  scientific  impulse!  Travel  in 


254  THE  MAKING  OF 

China  would  be  too  embarrassing  for  the  engi 
neer's  bride,  for  she  could  never  be  free  from  the 
curious  gaze  of  the  people ;  night  and  day  it  would 
follow  her,  for  the  houses  had  paper  windows  and 
the  people  would  punch  holes  through  these  win 
dows  and  watch  the  lying  down  of  the  strangers 
and  the  rising  of  the  same.  So  Lou  Henry,  torn 
by  the  conflict  of  being  a  geologist  and  a  woman, 
remained  at  Tien-Tsin. 

The  party  rode  in  imperial  state,  a  huge  caravan 
of  servants,   soldiers,  palanquins,  and  baggage- 
mules,    following    the    deep-worn    square-angled 
roads  cut  by  centuries  of  travel  far  below  the  sur 
face  of  the  land,  or  emerging  on  embankments 
raised  above  the  flooded  millet-fields,  passing  hud 
dled  villages  of  huts  with  straw-thatched  roofs, 
seeing  a  country  swarming  with  yellow  millions 
living  in  squalor,  contented,  disease-ridden,  pa 
tient,  clinging  without  complaint  to  the  crumbling 
edge  of  starvation.     They  journeyed  northward, 
making  for  the  mines  at  Niu  Shin  Shan,  and  word 
of  the  caravan's  coming  raced  before  them  like 
wind  over  a  wheat-field. 

Outside  the  village  they  halted  while  a  detach 
ment  of  soldiers  went  forward  to  announce  their 
arrival.  Then  they  approached  with  military 
ceremony,  two  lines  of  Chinese  cavalry  before 
them,  two  more  behind,  with  their  servants  and 
baggage  train  bringing  up  the  rear.  But  a  quar- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  255 

ter  of  a  mile  from  the  village  etiquette  flung  aside 
all  decorum.  The  soldiers  stood  up  in  their  stir 
rups,  lashed  'their  mounts,  and  dashed  forward 
with  yells,  and  they  raced  like  conquering  foes 
into  the  village,  cheering,  shouting,  and  clashing 
swords  together  while  firecrackers  exploded  from 
every  roof  and  a  three-cannon  salute  roared  above 
the  turmoil.  Then  the  mine  officials  came  forth 
in  state  robes,  and  there  were  ceremonies:  tea- 
drinking;  an  interminable  Chinese  banquet  that 
wore  away  the  night  with  music  that  tortured  the 
ear-drums;  endless  courses  of  fish,  sweetmeats, 
spiced  meat-balls,  chocolate  pastes,  and  delicate 
small  bowls  of  rice  wine. 

In  the  morning  they  were  led  to  see  the  mines. 
At  last! 

Australia  had  made  him  declare  that  he  wanted 
to  cry;  China  struck  him  dumb.  He  had  been 
prepared  for  primitive  methods ;  here  he  saw  the 
prehistoric.  The  mine  officials,  in  their  robes  of 
heavy  silk,  blue  and  green,  bounded  with  narrow 
brocaded  ribbon,  naively  displayed  to  him  the 
shallow  cuts  in  the  hills,  the  mills  of  hand-hewn 
stone,  the  toiling  coolies,  the  system. 

The  mines  were  divided  into  measured  portions, 
each  leased  to  a  group  of  ten  or  twelve  coolies 
.who  worked  it  cooperatively,  independent  of  any 
control  by  the  company.  Some  of  them  chipped 
away  the  rock-face  with  iron  moils ;  while  others 


256  THE  MAKING  OF 

sat  on  the  hillsides  breaking  the  ore  with  ham 
mers,  cracking  it  carefully  into  pebbles  no  larger 
than  hazelnuts.  By  many  little  fires  other  coolies 
squatted,  stirring  and  drying  these  pebbles  on 
squares  of  sheet  iron  laid  over  the  flames,  and 
up  and  down  the  paths  trotted  lines  of  men 
carrying  the  dried  and  cooled  ore  to  the  mill  in 
double  baskets*  tied  to  poles  over  the  shoulders. 

The  mill  was  a  flat  rock  four  feet  across,  with  a 
pole  through  the  center.  A  round  stone  roller 
with  a  long  wooden  handle  was  lashed  to  this  cen 
ter-piece,  and  around  and  around  in  a  circle  the 
yellow  men  trotted,  wearing  the  ore  down  to  pow 
der  that  was  swept  up  with  little  hand-made 
brooms. 

"And  what,"  he  said,  standing  at  gaze  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  "do  they  call  that  thing V9 

It  was  a  slanting  table  on  which  the  powdered 
ore  was  dumped.  Water  from  the  river,  brought 
in  willow  baskets,  washed  down  its  length,  and  be 
side  it  stood  the  coolies  in  their  flat  hats,  raking  the 
ore  upward  with  wooden  rakes.  The  interpreter 
translated  the  question  to  a  brocaded  official  whose 
impassive  face  was  faintly  rippled  by  a  strange 
expression  as  he  stared  at  the  Chief  Engineer  of 
Mines. 

"It  's  a  hand-buddle, "  he  said,  in  some  excite 
ment.  "They  used  it  in  Saxony  in — sometime 
early  in  the  fifteenth  century.  Well,  I  never 


HERBERT  HOOVER  257 

thought  I  'd  see  one!  And  they  're  panning  the 
dust  in  flat  willow  baskets,  down  there  at  the 
river.  What  do  they  do  next?" 

What  they  did  next  was  to  extract  the  iron  sand 
from  the  gold  dust  with  patient  manipulation  of 
natural  lodestones  found  in  the  mountains. 

"  There  is.n't  one  American  miner  in  the  Sierras 
who  couldn't  teach  these  people  five  centuries  of 
mining ! ' ' 

At  night  each  group  of  coolies  brought  their 
gold  to  the  company's  office,  where  it  was  weighed 
and  bought.  The  scales,  of  course,  were  arranged 
to  give  false  weight;  that,  it  was  explained,  was 
the  "squeeze"  of  the  local  manager,  who  super 
vised  the  smelting,  done  in  clay  crucibles  in  a  brick 
furnace.  The  solid  gold  bars,  weighing  five  taels, 
went  through  many  hands,  leaving  toll  by  the  way, 
until  it  reached  Chang's  banks. 

The  whole  system  needed  thorough  reorganiza 
tion  from  top  to  bottom.  Leasing  must  be  abol 
ished;  the  coolies  must  work  on  wages  for  the 
company.  Drills  must  be  brought  in,  and  dyna 
mite;  modern  crushers  and  mills  and  smelting- 
plants.  Graft  must  be  wiped  out ;  a  rigid  account 
ing  system  established ;  American  methods,  Amer 
ican  enterprise  and  energy  and  standards  of  busi 
ness  honesty!  Yes,  and  opposed  to  them  the  si 
lent,  unresisting,  unconquerable  inertia  of  China : 
four  hundred  millions  of  patient  yellow  men  plod- 


258  THE  MAKING  OF 

ding  in  the  honored  ways  of  their  fathers  and 
looking  with  inscrutable  eyes  on  the  Western  civ 
ilizations  rising  and  falling  and  leaving  old  China 
unchanged. 

He  rode  across  the  length  and  breadth  of  north 
ern  China.  He  examined  mines,  figured  esti 
mates,  drew  up  plans  of  reorganization.  At  Chin 
Chang  Kiu  Liang,  outside  the  Great  Wall  in  Mon 
golia,  he  found  one  mine  sunk  to  a  six-hundred- 
foot  level,  managed  by  a  Chinese  who  had  been  a 
miner  in  California  and  had  come  back  to  attach 
steam-engines  to  the  old  stone  mills.  Wilson 
was  put  in  charge  there ;  it  was  the  most  promising 
of  the  mines.  Agnew,  the  New  Zealander,  his 
underground  boss  from  the  Sons  of  Gwalia,  had 
been  brought  on,  and  Jack  Means  of  Stanford,  and 
Newberry,  the  Australian. 

"I  'm  going  to  plant  another  American  colony 
here,  as  I  did  in  Westralia,"  he  said.  He  estab 
lished  the  American  Engineers'  Club  on  Kace- 
course  Eoad  in  Tien-Tsin;  assayers'  offices  and 
laboratories  on  the  first  floor,  living-  and  sleeping- 
quarters  upstairs.  Lou  Henry  took  a  blue-brick 
house  on  the  same  street,  furnished  it,  gathered 
together  a  household  of  Chinese  servants.  They 
were  settling  down  to  the  long  fight. 

It  was  not  only  a  matter  of  reorganizing  mines ; 
the  intricate  labyrinths  of  China,  twisting  and 
doubling,  were  one  maze  of  lines  leading  from 


HERBERT  HOOVER  259 

V 

hovel  to  court,  from  sweating  coolie  to  the  empress 
dowager  and  from  her  through  all  the  diplomacy 
of  Europe.  He  must  have  railroads  to  get  out  his 
coal  and  iron;  Russia  wished  to  build  a  railway 
from  Baikal  to  Urga  to  Kalgan,  giving  her  an  out 
let  to  the  Pacific  at  Peking;  England  and  France 
blocked  that  move  of  Europe's  terror,  the  North 
ern  Bear.  But  there  are  no  frontiers  in  interna 
tional  finance.  Why  not  a  combination  of  English 
and  French  and  Russian  capital  to  build  a  common 
railway  over  the  old  caravan  route  from  China, 
to  connect  with  the  Trans-Siberian  railroad? 

And  there  was  the  treacherous  Yellow  River, 
"China's  Sorrow,"  creeping  like  a  serpent  over 
the  fertile  flat  fields,  lazily  placid  for  the  moment. 
But  at  short  intervals  through  all  the  centuries  it 
had  aroused  itself,  changed  its  course,  swept  away 
towns  and  villages  and  swallowed  the  rice-fields, 
leaving  famine  where  harvest  had  been.  He 
would  conquer  it ;  confine  it  with  dikes,  dredge  out 
its  channels,  and  make  it  a  watercourse  for  loaded 
ships.  This  could  be  done;  his  figures  showed 
that  it  could  be  done. 

Chang  Yen  Mao,  sedate  in  his  silken  robes,  a 
carved  fan  in  his  fingers,  listened  without  com 
ment  to  these  plans.  Conquer  "China's  Sor 
row"!  This  young,  quick-speaking  American 
with  estimates  and  contracts  in  his  blue-serge 
pockets  was  attacking  the  oldest  tradition  of  the 


260  THE  MAKING  OF 

empire.  Since  time  began  the  Yellow  Kiver  had 
been;  for  centuries  past  the  emperor  who  wished 
to  punish  a  powerful  mandarin  had  made  the  un 
favored  one  "The  Keeper  of  the  Yellow  Kiver." 
A  little  time — a  year,  two  years,  perhaps — and 
the  great  serpent  of  water  would  rise  again;  its 
official  keeper  would  then  be  beheaded.  Chang's 
own  friend  and  ally,  Li  Hung  Chang,  was  now  The 
Keeper  of  the  Yellow  River.  Three  years  before, 
the  empress  dowager  had  sent  him  on  a  painted 
scroll  of  silk  that  fatal  appointment,  and  ever 
since,  because  the  gods  were  kind,  the  river  had 
slept  between  its  banks.  Who  knew?  Perhaps 
this  young  American- 
Chang  Yen  Mao  slowly  unfolded  the  fan  and 
swayed  it  to  and  fro  with  the  slim  yellow  hand  on 
which  shone  the  thumb-ring  of  three-colored  jade. 
He  liked  the  young  American;  he  trusted  him. 
Herbert  Hoover  was  received  now  in  the  Chinese 
rooms  of  the  compound  where  Chang  lived  among 
his  ivories  and  dragon-carved  screens  and  old  pic 
tures  painted  on  silk.  The  young  American  was 
wise,  and  he  was  honest.  But  these  plans  would 
need  much  consideration.  The  dowager  empress 
feared  the  grasping  hands  of  Europe.  Heads  had 
fallen  for  less  than  the  rumor  of  such  enterprises. 
A  narrow  and  careful  path  must  be  trod  in  the 
labyrinths  of  the  Forbidden  City.  Patience. 
Have  patience.  A  long  and  serene  life  is  not  lived 


HERBERT  HOOVER  261 

in  haste,  O  young  American !  There  must  be  time 
for  contemplation. 

Meanwhile,  where  is  the  flood  of  gold  that 
should  be  pouring  forth  at  the  magic  touch  of  the 
Westerner! 

"  Mining  in  China  is  like  trying  to  fight  a 
feather-bed ! "  he  said  in  the  sitting-room  of  the 
Engineers'  Club.  But  he  had  little  time  to  spend 
there.  His  task  was  the  rebuilding  of  an  empire 
that  had  resisted  change  for  twenty  centuries.  At 
the  top  was  feudal  ownership ;  at  the  bottom,  the 
primitive  communism  in  which  human  society  be 
gan.  Somehow  he  must  insert  between  them  the 
individualism  of  pioneer  America,  building  toward 
the  industrial  capitalism  that  would  absorb  them 
both. 

The  whole  system  of  China's  mining  laws  must 
be  altered.  For  the  work  he  organized  the  Mining 
Bureau  of  Chihli  Province.  A  staff  was  put  at 
work  collecting,  translating,  and  summarizing  all 
Chinese  mining  literature  and  all  that  had  been 
written  in  other  languages  concerning  Chinese 
mines.  The  mines  themselves  must  be  examined, 
tested,  and  reported  upon.  Corps  of  geologists, 
surveyors,  and  assayers  were  put  at  work  on  that. 
The  mines  already  working  must  be  reorganized, 
equipped  with  modern  machinery,  and  forced  to 
increase  production  immediately.  He  made  esti 
mates,  cabled  to  America  for  bids  on  mining  ma- 


262  THE  MAKING  OF 

chinery,  figured  transportation  costs,  mapped  his 
hoped-for  railroads.  And  kept  a  watchful  eye  on 
the  network  of  political  and  economic  wires  cover 
ing  the  world. 

Tien-Tsin  and  Peking  were  filled  with  white 
men — English,  French,  German,  and  American; 
army  officers,  bankers,  diplomats — all  bent  upon 
their  own  designs  of  seizing  part  of  the  great  rich, 
unresisting  yellow  land.  In  the  Forbidden  City 
sat  Kwang-Hsu,  the  imprisoned  young  emperor 
who  had  tried  too  rashly  to  rebuild  his  country 
upon  Western  lines,  to  make  it  a  modern  nation 
of  the  Chinese,  created  by  the  Chinese  for  the 
Chinese,  and  on  the  Dragon  Throne  again  was  the 
empress  dowager,  angered  and  fearful.  The  For 
bidden  City  and  the  foreign  quarters  were  two 
enemy  forces  confronting  each  other  with  the 
China  of  the  coolies  between  them.  In  the  one 
patriotism  and  pride  stood  at  bay;  in  the  other 
imperialistic  ambitions  and  greed  pressed  for 
ward.  Germany  had  Kiao-chau ;  Eussia  had  Port 
Arthur  and  Ta-lien-wan ;  France  clutched  Kwang- 
Chau  Wan,  and  England  had  seized  Wei-hai-wei 
and  four  hundred  miles  of  territory  around  Hong 
kong.  The  custom-houses  of  the  empire  were  in 
pawn  to  these  voracious  Western  nations;  they 
collected  tolls  at  China's  ports,  and  Allied  war 
ships  lay  at  anchor  in  her  harbors. 

Echoes  from  the  courts  and  counting-houses  of 


HERBERT  HOOVER  263 

all  Europe  were  heard  faintly  among  the  click  of 
teaspoons  and  the  rattle  of  sabers  in  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  the  blue-brick  house  on  Race-course 
Road,  where  Lou  Henry  poured  tea  on  summer 
afternoons.  On  the  verandas  of  the  Astor  House, 
while  the  orchestra  played  and  dancers  whirled  in 
a  >rustle  of  silks  and  whispering  feet,  there  were 
snatches  of  talk,  non-committal,  oblique;  signifi 
cant  glances  above  the  sputter  of  a  match  at  a 
cigar-end. 

Herbert  Hoover  wore  evening  clothes  easily 
now.  His  horses  raced  with  the  others  at  the 
spring  and  autumn  events  at  the  race-course. 
These  were  details,  troublesome  to  a  man  whose 
whole  desire  was  to  develop  China's  mines,  but 
they  were  too  important  to  be  neglected.  Lou 
Henry  helped  him  there ;  Lou  Henry  who  was  still 
cherishing  her  project  of  mapping  the  geology  of 
this  region  as  soon  as  it  should  be  possible.  He 
was  missing  nothing.  He  did  not  miss,  either, 
the  slow  stirring  of  China's  vast  peoples;  a  rest 
lessness  like  that  of  a  disturbed  beehive.  Veiled 
glances,  met  here  and  there  on  his  long  trips 
through  the  interior;  a  sullenness,  an  antagonism 
too  subtle  to  be  met  and  overcome.  Danger!  Of 
course  not !  Not  after  the  lesson  of  the  Japanese 
War ;  not  with  Allied  guns  in  the  harbors. 

June  of  his  second  year  in  China,  and  little  ac 
complished  yet.     But  all  his  preliminary  work 


264  THE  MAKING  OF 

was  done.  He  knew  China's  mines  from  Chin 
Chang  Kou  Liang  to  Chao  Yang.  He  knew  as 
much  as  a  white  man  could  know  of  affairs  in  the 
Forbidden  City.  His  plans  were  finished,  ready 
to  be  carried  out. 

He  rode  southward  from  Kalgan,  and  he  saw 
a  land  suddenly  alive,  menacing,  buzzing  with  the 
hum  of  an  angry  swarm.  Rumors  of  rioting  here 
and  there.  Chinese  servants  suddenly  disappear 
ing  from  the  caravan  in  the  night,  gone  no  one 
would  say  where.  The  majordomo,  suave,  bow 
ing,  urging  detours,  suggesting  humbly  yet  insist 
ently  that  certain  villages  be  avoided.  Fresh 
heads  swinging  in  the  bamboo  baskets  outside 
walled  towns.  And  terraced  hillsides  and  flat 
fields  strangely  deserted  by  the  coolies.  Lou 
Henry  alone ! 

The  journey  became  a  race,  foot-servants  left 
behind,  too-heavy  baggage  discarded,  the  horses 
lashed  forward  long  into  the  night.  At  Peking 
he  caught  the  first  train  southward. 

The  little  foreign  settlement  outside  the  walls  of 
Tien-Tsin  was  as  usual,  undisturbed  and  tranquil. 
At  the  Engineers7  Club  he  heard  that  Wilson  had 
come  down  from  Mongolia;  had  had  a  " scrap" 
in  a  Chinese  town  where  the  mad  villagers  had 
suddenly  risen  and  mobbed  him  as  he  rode  in,  but 
nothing  serious.  Wilson  and  Newberry  were 
staying  at  the  country  house  of  Detring,  the  Grer- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  265 

man  Commissioner  of  Customs.  Oh,  there  were 
rumors,  but  there  were  always  rumors  in  China. 
Nothing  could  really  break  loose,  with  Allied 
troops  right  on  the  ground.  But  from  army  head 
quarters  a  detachment  was  being  hurriedly  sent 
to  Peking.  Nothing  serious,  of  course,  but  it  did 
look  as  though  there  might  be  a  bit  of  a  row  up 
there. 

Then  like  a  thunderclap  the  news  that  the  lega 
tions  at  Peking  were  besieged.  The  troops  had 
arrived  and  been  surrounded;  the  wires  flashed  a 
cry  for  help,  and  were  silent.  Another  detach 
ment  of  troops  marched  through  Tien-Tsin's 
streets,  going  to  the  rescue,  and  vanished  into  the 
silence  that  hung  over  the  North. 

"The  folks  at  home  will  be  worried,"  Hoover 
said.  "We  'd  better  cable  that  we  are  safe." 
The  cable  offices  were  crowded;  hundreds  of  mes 
sages  were  going  home.  It  might  be  a  good  idea 
to  get  Lou  Henry  down  the  river  to  Tong  Ku, 
under  the  protection  of  the  Allied  war-ships. 
But  Lou  Henry  scouted  the  idea;  she  was  per 
fectly  safe  where  she  was,  and  in  any  case  she 
would  not  go  without  him.  Of  course  he  could 
not  leave.  Power  brings  its  own  obligations; 
there  were  not  only  his  American  staff  to  consider, 
but  the  hundreds  of  Chinese  employees  who  were 
gathering  in  Chang's  compound. 

TYom  the  roof  of  the  Engineers '  Club  that  night 


266  THE  MAKING  OF 

the  Americans  watched  the  fires  that  blazed  be 
yond  the  walls  of  old  Tien-Tsin.  The  missions 
were  burning. 

"But  they  won't  attack  us.  They  wouldn't 
dare!" 

"I  don't  know  about  that.  But  we  can  handle 
them  if  they  do." 

There  were  about  five  thousand  Allied  troops 
in  Tien-Tsin ;  they  and  the  imperial  Chinese  Army 
would  be  able  to  subdue  the  mobs.  The  imperial 
army  was  with  them,  obviously;  the  empress 
dowager  would  not  dare  to  defy  all  Europe. 

The  following  night  there  was  a  flurry  of  an 
attack  from  the  southwest.  The  old  artillery 
of  the  English  troops  was  quickly  rushed 
through  the  streets;  trenches  were  hastily  being 
dug  for  the  infantry.  Lou  Henry  was  red- 
cheeked  and  bright-eyed  with  excitement.  A  mob 
of  angry  coolies  had  boldly  entered  the  blue-brick 
house  and  smashed  some  of  her  best  china,  jerking 
the  cloth  from  the  luncheon-table  before  her  eyes. 
She  had  driven  them  out  of  the  house  with  a 
bread-knife.  Army  officers  were  serious  but  con 
fident.  They  could  repulse  the  mob  if  it  attacked 
again.  Chang  Yen  Mao  sat  grave  and  composed 
in  his  European  palace.  He  did  not  know  the 
orders  given  the  imperial  army ;  doubtless  it  would 
soon  act  to  protect  the  foreigners.  But  who  could 
know  the  decrees  of  inscrutable  Fate?  These 


HERBERT  HOOVER  267 

things  would  pass,  as  all  things  passed.  Mean 
while  he  sipped  his  delicately  flavored  tea  from 
bowls  of  old  porcelain,  while  hourly  his  compound 
grew  more  crowded  with  terrified  Chinese. 

The  Boxer  attack  was  nothing.  It  lasted  per 
haps  half  an  hour.  A  spattering  of  rifle  fire 
flashing  in  the  darkness,  the  answering  boom  of 
English  guns.  The  mob  went  down  before  artil 
lery  like  grain  before  a  scythe.  Army  officers 
smiled.  Those  ignorant  yellow  beggars  had 
thought  that  their  secret  magic  calisthenics  would 
make  their  bodies  proof  against  foreign  bullets. 
My  word!  one  English  gun  could  handle  a  thou 
sand  Boxers !  No,  absolutely  no  real  danger,  my 
dear  fellow! 

The  American  flag  floated  over  the  Engineers' 
Club.  Lou  Henry  gave  another  to  the  breeze 
above  the  blue-brick  house.  Gallant  Lou  Henry, 
gay  as  ever,  tucking  a  revolver  into  her  belt. 
' ' Just  in  case.  Nonsense!  Of  course  I  won't 
leave!  Only,  one  never  knows  about  the  serv 
ants  ;  some  of  them  have  left  already.  I  'm  going 
down  to  see  what  's  happening  at  Mrs.  Drew's. 
Listen — promise  me."  Hands  holding  his  coat 
lapels.  "You  won't  get  into  the  fighting  without 
letting  me  know!  Then  that  's  all  right.  Good- 
by,  dear.  I  '11  see  you  at  dinner. ' ' 

Wilson  and  Newberry  had  come  in,  circling  the 
fighting,  arriving  too  late  to  take  a  hand  in  it  them- 


268  THE  MAKING  OF 

selves.  News  came  that  the  reinforcements  sent 
to  Peking  had  been  driven  back  and  now  lay  ten 
miles  to  the  northward,  surrounded  and  unable 
to  come  farther.  That  morning  another  attack 
from  the  north,  quickly  silenced.  Fighting  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river,  but  nothing  important. 
Apparently  the  flurry  was  over  now;  the  Boxers 
were  beaten. 

Sunday  was  one  long  breath  of  relief.  One  felt 
the  tension  a  little,  after  it  was  ended.  Madden 
ing,  the  way  this  had  happened,  just  at  the  time 
that  it  would  most  cripple  his  work !  It  would  be 
months,  perhaps,  before  the  international  tangle 
was  straightened  out  so  that  he  could  get  on  with 
his  job. 

He  sat  long  at  the  Sunday  luncheon,  relaxed, 
smiling  at  Lou  Henry  across  the  white  table. 
Through  the  open  windows,  with  the  breeze  that 
stirred  the  curtains,  came  a  distant  boom,  fol 
lowed  by  a  vibration  that  lightly  chattered  the 
cups  in  their  saucers.  He  sat  up,  met  Lou 
Henry 's  eyes,  and  rose  quickly.  She  was  on  her 
feet,  too,  and  they  stared  at  each  other. 

"Bert!" 

4 'Sounds  like  it.  That  's  artillery/'  Another 
boom  came,  and  another. 

From  a  roof-top,  with  field-glasses,  they  gazed 
over  the  town  at  the  wide  plain.  There  was  no 
doubt  about  it.  The  empress  dowager  was  defy- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  269 

ing  the  world.  Foreigners  in  China  were  doomed. 
The  advance  center  of  the  imperial  army  was  at 
tacking,  ringed  around  them.  Bursts  of  smoke 
fromihe  field-artillery;  the  long  drawn  scream  of 
shells  overhead ;  brick  walls  crashing  in  clouds  of 
dust  where  they  struck. 

He  must  get  Lou  Henry  into  the  center  of  town, 
where  the  danger  would  be  less.  He  must  go  out 
and  fight.  Hardly  five  thousand  men  against  a 
quarter  of  a  million.  Every  man  would  count. 
How  many  rifles  were  there  in  the  house?  He 
must  have  one.  He  must  give  one  to  Lou  Henry. 

She  packed  a  few  things,  hurriedly,  in  the  de 
serted  rooms.  One  Chinese  boy  waited  stolidly  in 
the  hallway,  asking  for  orders.  He  was  sent  to 
the  Engineers'  Club  to  get  a  rifle  and  send  a  cart 
for  Lou  Henry.  The  three-pound  guns  of  the 
English  were  answering  now.  Five  thousand  men 
against  the  imperial  army. 

The  boy  returned,  bringing  a  useless  Marlin 
rifle  with  a  hastily  whittled  wooden  plug  stuck 
rakishly  in  the  place  of  a  missing  sight,  and  a  note 
from  the  boys  at  the  club.  It  was  a  pencil- 
scrawled  parody  of  a  letter  from  an  English 
director  to  a  distant  mining  engineer  saying  that 
complaints  about  insufficient  equipment  were  un 
precedented  and  should  not  occur  again.  He 
grinned  while  he  read  it,  Lou  Henry  chuckling  be 
side  him.  Good  old  game  scouts,  those  American 


270  THE  MAKING  OF 

boys!  And  Lou  Henry,  standing  straight  beside 
him,  brave  and  sweet  as  ever,  with  death  at  yellow 
hands  coming  closer  with  every  boom  of  the  guns. 
A  man  feels  some  emotions  that  remake  his  soul. 

He  went  with  her  to  Mrs.  Drew's  house  near 
the  center  of  town.  Drew,  from  the  customs  of 
fice,  was  there,  and  Detring,  the  German  Commis 
sioner  of  Customs.  Detring 's  country  house  had 
been  burned  and  his  faithful  servants  killed.  The 
Chinese  were  using  flat  trajectory  field-pieces; 
most  of  the  shots  were  going  wild  over  the  town 
or  striking  the  brick  buildings  on  the  outskirts. 
Drew's  house  would  probably  be  safest  for  the 
women  on  that  account.  Not  that  there  was  any 
real  danger,  of  course :  one  must  at  least  keep  up 
that  fiction  before  the  women ;  they  must  not  be 
alarmed.  He  left  Lou  Henry  among  them,  tran 
quil  and  smiling,  giving  him  across  the  crowd 
just  one  long  look  to  carry  with  him. 

Well,  if  the  Chinese  did  not  bring  up  more  effi 
cient  guns  or  make  an  attack  in  force,  there  might 
still  be  a  slender  chance.  Five  thousand  men 
could  hold  off  scattering  attacks  for  a  while ;  help 
would  get  to  them  as  soon  as  possible.  What 
about  food  for  a  siege?  Was  there  enough  to 
last — how  long?  How  was  it  being  handled? 

At  army  headquarters  no  one  minimized  the 
danger  now.  When  the  imperial  army  attacked 
in  force  there  would  be  nothing  for  it  but  hand- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  271 

to-hand  fighting  through  the  streets  until  the  end. 
Food!  No  one  had  done  anything  about  that. 
Certainly  he  could  take  charge  of  it. 

Already  stores  and  warehouses  were  being 
opened  and  the  scanty  supply  of  food  was  scatter 
ing.  He  stopped  that.  He  commandeered  wag 
ons,  bulldozed  dealers,  put  his  men  in  charge  here 
and  there,  gathered  up  the  loose  ends,  got  things 
in  rough  order.  Enough  food  for  ten  days.  He 
organized  a  rationing  system.  The  Cossacks 
were  doing  splendid  work ;  two  hundred  Russians, 
alone,  unsupported,  charging  and  charging  again 
the  whole  imperial  army.  Fighting  again  across 
the  river,  and  the  river  front  unprotected. 
Tinned  goods,  cases  of  milk,  sacks  of  flour,  grad 
ually  being  gathered  into  one  big  warehouse.  A 
rumor  that  the  blue-brick  house  had  been  struck 
by  a  shell.  A  rumor  that  the  Chinese  in  Chang's 
palace  were  sniping  from  the  roofs.  Some  one 
must  look  after  that.  Wilson  would  do  it.  At 
any  rate,  there  was  plenty  of  rice. 

Twenty-four  hours,  and  the  food  supply  was 
taken  care  of.  Hot  sun  on  the  roofs,  hot  dust  in 
the  streets  where  the  smell  of  cordite  hung  in  the 
breathless  air.  He  reached  Drew's  house  at  din 
ner-time.  There  were  the  softly  shaded  lights 
gleaming  on  white  linen,  silver  and  thin  glass 
sparkling,  Lou  Henry's  vivid  face  and  smooth 
shoulders  above  an  evening  gown.  Other  women 


272  THE  MAKING  OF 

in  evening  dress.  He  was  seized  upon  by  a  laugh 
ing  hostess  and  urged  into  an  empty  chair. 
"  Never  mind  about  your  clothes.  Everything  's 
so  upset!  Wang,  a  plate  of  soup  for  Mr.  Hoo 
ver.  ' ' 

Chatter.  Some  one  had  lost  her  silver  spoons, 
stolen  by  a  fleeing  servant,  no  doubt.  And 
Chinese  servants  had  always  been  so  dependable, 
too;  really  the  perfect  servants.  "As  I  Ve  often 
said,  I  don't  know  what  I  could  do  without — " 

That  was  the  woman 's  way  of  playing  the  game, 
no  doubt.  A  line  of  barricades  should  be  thrown 
up  along  the  river  bank.  The  stream  was  only 
eighty  feet  wide.  In  case  the  attack  came  from 
that  direction  the  warehouses  could  not  be  held 
long.  The  sound  of  the  guns  had  lulled,  which 
perhaps  meant  that  the  attack  was  coming  now. 

Mrs.  Drew  leaned  forward,  catching  his  atten 
tion  with  a  gesture  of  a  jeweled  hand.  "Mr. 
Hoover,  do  tell  us !  It  surely  is  n  't  true,  what  the 
army  officers  say — that  we  are  really  in  danger! 
That  the  whole  imperial  army  is  against  us  I9  y 

She  did  not  know !  None  of  them  knew,  except 
Lou  Henry.  The  silence  had  the  quality  of  the 
instant  after  a  lightning  flash  when  sky  and  earth 
in  breathless  suspense  await  the  thunder. 
Around  the  white  circle  of  the  table  bare  shoul 
ders  bent  forward,  lips  were  slightly  parted, 
widening  eyes  were  fixed  on  him.  He  sat  exposed, 


HERBERT  HOOVER  273 

defenseless,  in  the  gaze  of  those  questioning  eyes 
while  his  overstrained  young  nerves,  caught  un 
aware  in  a  moment  of  relaxation,  failed  him. 
Then,  like  a  slender  arm  thrust  between  him  and 
the  intolerable  moment,  Lou  Henry's  voice  res 
cued  him. 

'  i  Real  danger  ?  When  our  men  are  here  ! ' '  she 
said  quickly.  "Why  it  's  absurd!"  Her  mouth 
crinkled  with  mischief.  "Except  that  Bert  's 
probably  planning  to  starve  us  to  death  with  our 
groceries  tied  up  in  red-tape!  Is  it  true  you  Ve 
had  all  the  vegetable  man's  potatoes  locked  up 
like  criminals  V7 

He  got  away  under  cover  of  the  laughter. 
Never  a  woman  like  her  in  all  the  world.  Game  to 
the  core  of  her,  standing  up  to  the  last  with  a 
smile  in  her  eyes.  And  he  had  promised  her  that 
when  the  end  came  he  would  kill  her  himself. 

Well,  what  was  to  be  done  now!  Barricade 
the  river  front,  he  was  told  by  Captain  Bailey  at 
headquarters.  The  Chinese  were  building  a  pon 
toon-bridge  up  the  river,  intending  to  float  it  down 
and  cross  on  it. 

All  day  Tuesday  in  the  sun  on  the  deserted 
Bund.  Running  six  coolies  back  and  forth  from 
the  warehouses  with  sacks  of  rice.  Keeping  them 
covered  by  his  rifle  every  second.  Trotting  be 
side  them,  back  and  forth.  Bullets  singing  past 
his  ears,  striking  spatters  of  brick-dust  from  the 


274  THE  MAKING  OF 

warehouse  wall.  Booming  of  artillery  on  the 
other  side  of  the  town. 

Working  on  in  the  dusk  up  to  the  last  moment 
of  twilight.  Eifles  spitting  fire  now  through  the 
gathering  darkness.  Dust  rising  in  sudden  spurts 
about  his  feet.  In  the  shadows,  coming  serenely 
toward  him,  Lou  Henry  in  walking-clothes,  with 
an  English  express-rifle  in  a  sling  strap  swung 
from  her  shoulder. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?" 

"I  came  to  see  what  you  are  doing,  and  to 
help!"  And  bullets  coming  like  bees  across  the 
river ! 

"Go  back  where  you  '11  be  safe!" 

"Let  me  handle  the  coolies  while  you  rest  a 
while.  You  can't  keep  this  up  all  night." 

"We  're  almost  done.  We  're  using  the  last  of 
the  rice-sacks.  Go  back.  Please  get  out  of  this 
fire." 

Then  two  days  in  which  he  hardly  saw  her. 
She  was  working  in  the  big  building  of  the  Tien- 
Tsin  Club,  now  become  a  hospital.  The  wounded 
were  coming  in  now,  carried  in  litters  through  the 
choking  streets,  laid  in  packed  rows  in  the  club 
corridors,  on  the  steps,  on  the  sidewalk.  There 
were  no  trained  nurses  and  only  one  doctor.  Lou 
Henry  was  in  charge  of  half  the  hospital ;  without 
anaesthetics  or  medicines,  untrained  and  helped 
only  by  women  more  helpless  than  herself,  she 


HERBERT  HOOVER  275 

was  improvising  beds  and  operating-tables,  cut 
ting  blood-soaked  garments  from  torn  bodies, 
washing  wounds,  working  without  pause  in  the 
heat  and  stench. 

Over  the  roofs  the  shells  still  whined  and 
shrieked.  The  German  Club  had  been  struck,  and 
the  Astor  House.  Here  and  there  buildings 
crumbled  into  shattered  heaps  of  brick;  the  air 
was  full  of  mortar-dust.  Chang  Yen  Mao  was  in 
trouble,  brought  up  before  a  court  martial  charged 
with  sending  messages  to  the  enemy.  Carrier- 
pigeons  flying  with  messages  from  one  side  of  the 
besieging  army  to  the  other  passed  above  the 
roofs  of  Chang's  palace,  and  to  wratchers  outside 
the  compound  walls  it  seemed  that  the  birds  came 
from  the  palace  itself.  A  thousand  terrified 
Chinese,  the  family  and  servants  of  Chang  and 
the  Chinese  staff  of  the  mining  companies,  were 
huddled  together  in  the  compound,  praying  to 
their  gods  and  to  the  Director-General 's  American 
engineer. 

It  had  been  wise  forethought  that  put  Wilson 
inside  the  palace  walls  and  kept  him  there.  Wil 
son  had  learned  Chinese,  and  day  and  night  he 
had  been  with  Chang,  watching  all  that  occurred 
in  the  compound.  He  was  able  to  testify  posi 
tively  that  the  pigeons  had  not  come  from  Chang 
Yen  Mao's  household.  He  and  Herbert  Hoover 
stood  sponsor  for  it  before  the  authorities  and 


276  THE  MAKING  OF 

saved    the    life    of    the    imperturbable    Chang. 

There  was  a  sudden  hot  attack  from  the  south 
east;  the  American  engineers  fought  in  the 
trenches  with  British,  Japanese,  and  Eussian 
troops.  Two  nights  they  fought  behind  the  barri 
cades  on  the  river  front.  The  pontoon-bridge,  too 
hastily  built,  went  to  pieces  in  the  river,  and  the 
Bund  was  held.  The  east  arsenal  was  taken  by 
storm ;  recovered  again.  Still  the  carrier-pigeons 
flew  across  the  town,  and  still  there  was  no  gen 
eral  attack.  The  remnant  of  the  Cossacks  was 
still  charging  at  intervals  the  whole  imperial 
Chinese  Army ;  racing  across  the  plain  upright  in 
their  stirrups,  slashing  downward  with  their 
sabers,  falling,  but  demoralizing  thousands  of  the 
enemy. 

Then  the  incredible  attack  of  General  Nieh. 
Hoover  stood  with  a  field-glass  and  watched  it. 
General  Nieh,  commander  of  the  imperial  army, 
with  his  body-guard  of  fifteen  hundred  cavalry 
men,  charging  into  the  English  artillery  fire. 
This,  undoubtedly,  was  the  beginning  of  the  big 
attack,  the  beginning  of  the  end.  He  saw  in  the 
eyes  of  his  American  boys  the  unspoken  thought, 
i  *  Thank  God  I  have  no  wife  here." 

The  Chinese  cavalry  charged,  General  Nieh 
leading  them  on  his  white  horse  straight  into  the 
screaming  shells  of  the  British  guns.  They  went 
down  in  a  bloody  welter  on  the  plain.  No  artil- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  277 

lery  followed;  no  infantry.  Nothing  happened. 
The  smoking  guns  rested,  and  quiet  fell  over  the 
encircling  yellow  army. 

General  Nieh  had  committed  suicide.  Why? — 
with  the  whole  advance  center  of  China's  military 
forces  at  his  command,  and  only  five  thousand 
white  men  to  kill  in  an  unfortified  town.  There 
was  only  one  reason  possible  to  a  great  Chinese 
mandarin.  He  had  found  that  he  could  not  carry 
out  the  orders  of  the  empress,  and  he  had  killed 
himself.  There  was  dissension  among  the 
Chinese  generals;  too  many  feared  the  reprisals 
of  the  European  powers  that  would  follow  the 
slaughter.  That  explained  the  delayed  attack;  it 
explained  General  Nieh 's  suicide ;  it  explained  the 
desultory  fighting  that  went  on  through  three 
more  days.  Hope  revived.  The  emotional  ten 
sion  relaxed  a  little.  The  food-supply  was  run 
ning  low,  but  it  still  held  out  under  the  rationing 
system.  Shells  still  fell  into  the  town,  but  one 
gets  used  to  those.  He  had  leisure  in  the  Engi 
neers  '  Club  to  figure  on  the  back  of  an  envelope 
that  it  took  three  tons  of  shrapnel  to  kill  one  man. 

"At  that  rate  we  '11  live  for  a  long  time  yet!" 
he  grinned. 

"I  wonder  what  my  mother  is  thinking  now," 
said  Norman  Magee.  "It  seems  a  year  since  I 
cabled  her,  'Safe.'  I  wish  the  wires  were  n't  cut. 
I  'd  give  anything  if  I  could  cable  her  again. ' ' 


278  THE  MAKING  OF 

The  words  released  thoughts  that  were  better 
kept  chained  down.  There  was  a  stillness  in  the 
group.  So,  stretching  his  legs  and  thrusting  his 
hands  deep  into  his  pockets,  Hoover  asked  cas 
ually,  "Well,  suppose  you  could?  What  would 
you  say?" 

"I  guess  I  'd  have  to  cable,  'Not  so  safe,'  "  Ma- 
gee  replied.  One  felt  better  after  that  laugh. 

The  sound  of  new  guns  was  heard  on  the  sixth 
day;  reinforcements  fighting  on  the  other  side  of 
the  besieging  circle.  That  night  from  the  roof  of 
the  Engineers'  Club  field-glasses  picked  up  the 
bursts  of  fire  from  those  friendly  guns.  They 
did  not  get  through,  but  they  were  there.  Twelve 
hours  later  the  yellow  ring  was  broken  and  the 
troops  came — Americans,  British,  Japanese,  Ital 
ians,  Germans,  and  Russians  marching  through 
the  streets,  cheered  by  laughing,  weeping,  praying 
crowds.  The  siege  was  ended. 

Such  are  the  amazing  ways  of  women  that  then, 
when  the  real  danger  was  over,  Lou  Henry  soaked 
his  blue-serge  shoulder  with  unrestrained  tears. 
God  bless  her. 

"You  mustn't  mind  me,"  she  said.  "I — I 
guess  I  'm  a  little  tired.  And  you  know  I  'm  so 
disappointed  because  now  they  '11  never  let  me  do 
any  geological  work  in  China. ' ' 

The  imperial  Chinese  Army  withdrew  a  little 
and  hung  on  the  horizon  like  a  cloud,  from  which 


HERBERT  HOOVER  279 

still  came  lightning  flashes  at  intervals.  But  the 
river  running  down  to  Tong  Ku  was  open.  He 
would  take  Lou  Henry  down  there,  out  of  the 
range  of  a  chance  bullet,  away  from  a  town  filled 
with  looting  troops.  He  lingered  only  long 
enough  to  discuss  with  Dr.  Drake,  of  the  Chinese 
University,  his  plan  for  organizing  a  building-and- 
loan  company  to  help  rebuild  the  shell-wrecked 
buildings,  and  to  see  Chang  Yen  Mao. 

That  dignified  mandarin  sat  in  profound  med 
itation  amid  the  chaos  of  China.  The  death  of 
two  German  missionaries  at  the  hands  of  a  chance 
mob  had  cost  the  Empire  Kiao-chau ;  Port  Arthur 
and  Ta-lien-wan;  Kwang-chau-Wan,  WeiJiai-wei 
and  four  hundred  miles  of  territory  around 
Hongkong.  What  vengeance  would  the  hungry 
powers  now  exact!  Yesterday  he  had  possessed 
all  the  wealth  of  the  mines  of  China;  to-morrow 
into  what  European  pockets  would  it  go? 

There  was  no  doubt  that  Chang's  fears  were  j 
well  founded.  No  one  questioned  that  the  powers 
would  now  divide  the  richest  parts  of  China  into 
" zones  of  influence"  in  which  a  Chinese  could 
have  small  hope  of  developing  mines.  The  prob 
lem  was  to  find  a  method  of  guarding  Chang's 
interests  through  all  the  delicate  complications  of 
international  politics  and  business.  Detring,  the 
German  Commissioner  of  Customs,  in  whom 
Chang  had  long  reposed  confidence,  advised  an 


280  THE  MAKING  OF 

attempt  to  form  a  mining  company  in  England 
under  the  British  laws,  the  stock  to  be  held  jointly 
by  Europeans  and  Chinese.  Chang  Yen  Mao  con 
trolled  the  Kai  Ping  coal  mines,  rich  and  unex- 
ploited  fields.  Let  him  put  these  into  the  hands 
of  his  Western  friends  as  the  basis  of  a  company 
protected  by  British  laws  and  British  armies.  A 
holding  company  could  then  be  organized  to  take 
the  mines  at  their  present  valuation  and  resell 
them  to  a  mining  company  at  such  an  increased 
figure  as  to  make  Chang's  part-interest  in  the 
mining  company  equal  to  the  entire  present  value 
of  the  mines.  In  this  manner  did  Western  finance 
make  four  dollars  grow  where  one  had  grown  be 
fore.  Chang  could  lose  nothing  by  this  plan, 
while  on  the  other  hand  if  he  hesitated  he  would 
lose  all.  The  angered  Western  nations,  demand 
ing  revenge  for  the  attack  on  their  flags  and  cit 
izens,  would  seize  the  mines  outright,  and  Euro 
pean  financiers,  multiplying  their  value  by  West 
ern  methods  of  capitalization  and  development, 
would  own  the  whole.  The  situation  was  as  sim 
ple  as  that;  a  situation  eminently  concrete  and 
practical. 

Yet  Chang  Yen  Mao,  sitting  among  his  old 
bronzes  and  painted  silks,  let  the  hours  go  by  in 
long  and  devious  thoughts.  He  considered  the 
dignity  of  the  Chinese  Empire  and  the  long  cen 
turies  in  which,  proud  and  aloof,  his  people  had 


HERBERT  HOOVER  281 

ignored  the  little  clutching  fingers  of  the  West. 
Chinese  jewelers  had  wrought  marvelously  the 
soft  pure  gold  from  Chinese  mines  in  those  old 
times  when  the  barbarian  English  and  Germans 
were  wild  men  hunting  with  clubs  through  the 
forests.  Since  the  memory  of  man  began  China 
had  been  mistress  of  herself,  wise,  sophisticated, 
learned  in  the  arts  of  life,  gazing  with  indifference 
too  profound  for  scorn  upon  the  childish  follies 
and  furies  of  the  little  evanescent  peoples  beyond 
her  borders.  Now  her  soil  was  desecrated,  her 
silken  reticences  torn  from  her  by  brutal  hands, 
and  she  stood  defenseless  with  the  guns  of  the 
barbarians  at  her  heart.  Expediency  counseled  a 
facile  surrender,  but  expediency  is  the  vpice  of  the 
passing  moment,  fleeting  as  time,  leaving  not  even 
an  echo.  Chang  Yen  Mao  was  concerned  for  the 
immemorial  dignity  and  honor  of  China,  a  small 
part  of  which  was  in  his  keeping. 

The  compound  of  his  palace  was  in  an  uproar. 
Feet  clattered  on  the  graveled  paths,  voices  chat 
tered  everywhere.  The  thousand  Chinese  impris 
oned  there  during  the  siege  were  struggling  each 
with  his  own  indecisions.  Foreign  troops  con 
trolled  the  town ;  fighting  was  still  going  on  to  the 
northward,  but  the  river  was  open  to  Tong  Ku. 
Chang's  sharp-voiced  Number  One  wife  with  all 
her  servants  and  retainers  clamored  to  be  taken  to 
Japan,  and  Wilson  was  contending  with  a  hun- 


THE  MAKING  OF 

dred  details  of  the  journey.  Chang  Yen  Mao  was 
appealed  to  from  every  side.  Meditation  was  im 
possible,  and  a  decision  could  not  be  reached. 
The  days  passed  in  turmoil,  and  the  foreigners 
departed. 

A  week  later  Herbert  Hoover  was  waiting  with 
Lou  Henry  in  the  custom-house  at  Tong  Ku  for 
the  steamer  that  would  take  them  back  to  Amer- 
\ica.  The  Boxer  rebellion  had  ended  his  useful 
ness  in  China  and  he  was  going  away  with  failure 
behind  him  and  uncertainty  ahead.  Bewick, 
Moreing  would  place  him  somewhere  in  the  world 
that  was  covered  by  their  mining  interests,  but 
it  might  be  in  a  place  to  which  no  man  could  ask 
a  white  woman  to  go. 

The  big  compound  of  the  Chinese  Engineering 
and  Coaling  Company  was  crowded  with  refugees. 
Military  beds  had  been  crowded  into  the  offices  of 
the  two-story  custom-house  and  men  were  sleep 
ing  in  the  warehouses.  Outside  the  bar  a  steamer 
lay,  unable  to  get  away,  and  the  days  dragged 
aimlessly.  Then  down  the  river  in  a  little  boat 
came  Chang  Yen  Mao  with  Detring. 

Chang  Yen  Mao  had  decided  to  accept  the  ad 
vice  of  his  German  friend.  They  had  come  to  ask 
Herbert  Hoover  to  take  to  London  Chang's  pro 
posal  that  an  English  company  take  over  the 
mines  and  develop  them  under  the  protection  of 
the  Allies.  Already  the  Russians  and  Japanese 


HERBERT  HOOVER  283 

were  marching  upon  the  mines  with  the  intention 
of  seizing  them.  There  was  need  for  haste.  But 
the  interests  of  China  must  be  guarded.  Chinese 
must  share  with  foreigners  the  ownership  and  con 
trol  of  the  mines. 

They  discussed  the  project  in  a  bare  room  in 
the  custom-house,  overlooking  the  godown  of  the 
coaling  company  and  the  masts  of  idle  ships.  The 
silken  robes  of  Chang  Yen  Mao  concealed  the 
small  straight  chair  in  which  he  sat,  his  hands 
folded  in  his  wide  sleeves.  Detring,  the  genial 
bearded  German,  rested  an  elbow  on  the  office  desk 
and  smoked  ceaselessly,  lighting  one  cigar  from 
the  stump  of  another,  while  Bert  Hoover,  young 
and  inexperienced  in  finance,  but  alert,  sat  on  the 
edge  of  the  hard  narrow  bed  and  listened. 

He  knew  the  mines,  Detring  explained,  and  al 
ready  he  had  his  connections  in  London.  Chang 
Yen  Mao  and  Detring  believed  he  could  put  the 
deal  through.  Upon  his  doing  so  depended  the 
only  hope  of  saving  any  part  of  the  mines  for 
Chang  or  for  China.  It  was  a  last  hope,  a  desper 
ate  attempt,  but  if  the  effort  succeeded  it  would 
mean  millions  for  the  London  company  and  for 
the  Chinese. 

" All  right.  Put  the  proposition  in  writing," 
Herbert  Hoover  said. 

The  papers  were  prepared;  the  contracts,  the 
power  of  attorney  to  Herbert  Hoover,  signed  in 


284  THE  MAKING  OF 

India  ink  by  Chang's  brush.  They  were  stowed 
in  an  inside  pocket  of  the  blue-serge  coat,  and 
Detring  and  Chang  Yen  returned  to  Tien-Tsin. 

The  kaleidoscope  in  the  hands  of  Chance  had 
turned  again ;  the  future  had  a  new  pattern.  Her 
bert  Hoover  sailed  for  London,  not  as  a  young 
mining  engineer  whose  work  had  been  ended  by 
the  Boxer  troubles,  but  as  a  fledgling  financier 
with  valuable  mining  properties  in  his  breast 
pocket.  Mr.  Moreing  received  him  with  respect 
and  heard  him  with  growing  enthusiasm.  Bewick, 
Moreing  was  not  an  exploiting  company,  but  a 
company  that  handled  and  developed  actual  min 
ing  properties;  however,  its  connected  and  subsi 
diary  companies  were  in  the  heart  of  international 
finance.  Chang  Yen  Mao's  option  and  memoran 
dum  were  the  center  of  conferences  in  offices  and 
banks.  A  holding  company  was  organized  to  buy 
it,  capitalize,  and  resell  it.  A  second  company 
sprang  into  existence  to  purchase  it  and  float  the 
stock  on  the  market.  The  Chinese  Engineering 
and  Mining  Company,  Ltd.,  took  over  the  actual 
development  of  the  mines,  and  Herbert  Hoover 
returned  to  China  as  its  general  manager,  with  a 
crumb  from  the  financial  feast — fifty  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  stock  in  the  company. 

With  him  went  two  men  to  see  Chang  Yen  Mao 
and  complete  the  financial  arrangements  trans 
ferring  the  property.  At  the  last  moment  new 


HERBERT  HOOVER  285 

complications  developed.  Chang  Yen  Mao  stood 
firm  in  his  insistence  that  the  company  should  be 
controlled  equally  by  Chinese  and  foreigners,  that 
Chinese  must  be  on  the  board  of  directors,  and 
that  the  central  offices  of  the  company  should  be 
in  China.  His  doubts  had  come  back  upon  him. 
Days  went  past  in  conversations  that  came  to  no 
conclusion.  Then  the  new  general  manager  inter 
vened;  he  became  a  mediator  between  the  oppos 
ing  interests,  he  persuaded  the  white  men  to  yield 
to  Chang's  conditions.  A  memorandum  was 
drawn,  signed  by  Chang  Yen  Mao  and  by  Herbert 
Hoover  as  representative  of  the  company;  it  was 
ratified  by  cable  from  London.  The  final  arrange 
ments  were  completed,  and  the  transfer  was 
made.  Now  for  the  real  job  of  developing  the 
mines ! 

He  began  his  work  confidently  and  happily.  At 
last  he  had  a  free  hand  in  the  carrying  out  of  the 
plans  so  long  delayed  by  the  baffling  web  of 
Chinese  evasions.  He  was  working  for  Euro 
peans,  and  it  was  the  period  in  mining  develop 
ment  when  American  engineers  were  coming  into 
their  own.  London,  the  center  of  the  world's 
mining,  was  depending  on  proved  American  enter 
prise,  initiative,  and  resourcefulness  in  all  the 
corners  of  the  earth ;  the  energy  of  the  white  man, 
intensified  by  its  conflict  with  the  American  wilder 
ness,  was  giving  new  force  to  the  currents  of 


286  THE  MAKING  OF 

world  commercialism.  American  qualities  of 
mind  and  character,  the  qualities  that  were  Her 
bert  Hoover's,  had  won  recognition  and  respect. 
The  Kai  Ping  mines  were  his  to  direct  and 
develop. 

The  old  mines  leaped  into  new  life.  American 
methods  and  machinery  were  installed;  tunnels 
driven,  railway  tracks  laid.  The  coal  poured 
from  the  earth  into  long  trains  of  box-cars  and 
roared  down  chutes  into  the  maws  of  waiting 
ships.  The  American  wage  system  and  bookkeep 
ing  wiped  out  the  ancient  customs  of  coolie  com 
munism  and  official  graft.  And  all  this  was  but 
the  beginning;  larger  plans,  and  larger,  grew  in 
the  imagination  of  the  new  general  manager  of  the 
Chinese  Engineering  and  Mining  Company,  Lim 
ited. 

But  Chang  Yen  Mao  was  perturbed.  He  con 
sulted  anxiously  with  his  young  friend.  The 
directors  of  the  company  were  meeting  in  Brus 
sels,  on  the  other  side  of  the  world.  The  Chinese 
\directors  had  no  voice  in  their  decisions.  When 
were  the  terms  of  the  memorandum  to  be  carried 
out?  When  were  the  central  offices  to  be  in 
China? 

The  foreign  powers  had  not  held  territory  in 
China,  as  had  been  feared.  The  dowager  empress 
still  ruled  the  empire  from  the  labyrinths  of  the 


HERBERT  HOOVER  287 

Forbidden  City,  and  her  eyes  rested  coldly  on  her 
former  favorite,  Chang  Yen  Mao.  Had  he  sold 
to  the  hated  foreigners  the  mines  she  had  given 
into  his  care? 

It  was  true  that  Chang  Yen  Mao  and  his 
Chinese  friends  were  making  profits  from  the 
mines.  It  was  true  that  they  had  gained  greatly 
in  money  by  the  organization  of  the  new  company. 
But  there  was  more  than  money  involved  in  this 
matter;  there  were  Chinese  honor  and  Chinese 
pride,  and  the  career  of  the  coolie  boy  who  had 
won  to  a  high  place  by  the  Dragon  Throne.  Al 
ready  a  year  had  gone  by  since  he  had  listened  to 
Detring's  advice,  and  as  he  thought  of  that  long 
period,  he  thought,  too,  when  were  the  promises 
made  to  him  then  to  be  carried  out?  Chang  Yen 
Mao  was  calm,  but  in  his  eyes  a  failing  hope 
begged  reassurance. 

It  was  not  difficult  to  give.  The  terms  of  the 
memorandum  would  undoubtedly  be  carried  out; 
these  things  took  time.  The  memorandum  had 
been  included  in  the  agreement  made;  Chang's 
condition  had  been  made  thoroughly  clear  in  Lon 
don.  The  general  manager  of  the  mines  had  noth 
ing  to  do  with  these  matters ;  his  responsibility  had 
ended  with  the  forming  of  the  company,  in  which 
Chang's  wishes  had  been  scrupulously  carried  out. 
In  the  meantime  the  mines  were  daily  pouring  out 


288  THE  MAKING  OF 

more  coal,  and  it  was  in  them  that  his  interest  lay. 
His  thoughts  ran  far  into  the  future,  busy  with 
widening  plans  for  Chinese  mining. 

The  blow  fell  suddenly,  with  the  arrival  of  two 
young  Belgians  sent  out  from  London  in  response 
to  Chang's  protests.  Belgian  and  German  inter 
ests  had  bought  out  English  and  Chinese  stock 
holders  in  the  Chinese  Engineering  and  Mining 
\\Company;  Belgians  and  Germans  now  held  con- 
utrol,  and  the  terms  of  the  memorandum  would  not 
De  carried  out.  The  board  of  directors  repudi 
ated  the  original  agreement  which  the  former  own 
ers  of  the  company  had  made  with  Herbert  Hoov 
er.  The  memorandum  would  not  hold  in  law,  be 
cause  the  paper  on  which  it  was  written  was  not 
attached  to  the  paper  on  which  the  option  was 
written.  Therefore,  legally,  the  memorandum 
was  not  part  of  the  option.  The  control  of  the 
mines  rested  entirely  in  foreign  hands;  the 
Chinese  who  still  held  their  stock  could  draw  their 
dividends,  but  they  had  no  authority  in  the  man 
agement  of  the  property. 

Chang  Yen  Mao  heard  this  statement  in  silence, 
sitting  upright  on  a  plush-upholstered  arm-chair 
in  the  drawing-room  of  the  great  palace  that  he 
had  made  European  because  he  was  a  progressive 
Chinese  eager  to  help  in  the  modernizing  of  China. 
Then  he  rose  in  his  robes  of  heavy  silk  edged  with 
wave-borders  of  color  and  dismissed  his  Western 


HERBERT  HOOVER  289 

visitors.  He  had  seen  in  their  faces  that  they 
spoke  the  truth;  he  had  betrayed  China,  and  it  is 
not  becoming  that  a  man,  like  a  rat,  should  scurry 
into  corners  seeking  escape  from  the  consequences 
of  his  deeds. 

He  sat  quietly  in  the  Chinese  rooms  of  his  com 
pound,  a  fan  of  carved  ivory  and  painted  silk  in 
his  fingers,  when  his  young  American  friend  came 
hurriedly  to  see  him.  The  young  American  was 
angry,  burning  with  a  sense  of  outraged  justice 
and  with  scorn  of  men  who  seize  on  legal  quibbles 
to  cover  broken  faith.  He  came  to  assure  Chang 
Yen  Mao  that  he  had  had  no  part  in  this  calamity ; 
that  he  would  not  be  a  party  to  it ;  that  he  would 
leave  China  before  he  would  consent  to  it.  These 
protestations  were  unnecessary.  Chang  Yen 
Mao  had  long  known  that  the  young  American  was 
honest  and  his  trust  in  him  was  unshaken. 

Herbert  Hoover  went  out  to  struggle  in  the 
Western  way  with  an  implacable  fact.  Nothing 
could  be  done.  The  board  of  directors  persisted 
in  its  refusal  to  carry  out^the  terms  of  the  mem 
orandum  and  stood  on  its  legal  rights.  It  was 
a  lesson  in  differing  national  points  of  view  for 
a  young  man  of  twenty-five;  English  and  Amer 
icans,  he  found,  worked  together  in  amity  on  the 
basis  of  the  spirit  of  an  agreement;  Continental 
financiers  followed  an  agreement  to  the  letter. 
He  resigned  the  managership  of  the  Chinese  En- 


290  THE  MAKING  OF 

gineering  and  Mining  Company  and  arranged  to 
go  home.  His  brother  Theodore  was  a  mining  en 
gineer  now ;  they  could  open  offices  together  in  San 
Francisco  and  handle  American  mines. 

Chang  Yen  Mao  remained  quietly  behind  his 
screens  of  teak-wood  and  silk,  arranging  his  af 
fairs,  and  awaiting  the  fatal  command  from 
Peking.  It  came  at  last,  a  scroll  of  parchment 
rolled  on  an  ivory  wand  and  wrapped  in  silk  tied 
with  golden  cords, — a  formal  request  from  the 
empress  to  come  to  Peking  and  be  beheaded. 
Chang  Yen  Mao,  having  read  it  with  proper  rev 
erence,  rolled  it  again  in  its  imperial  wrappings 
and  gave  orders  that  a  cart  be  brought  and  that 
his  servants  make  him  ready  for  the  journey. 

It  was  evening  before  the  preparations  were 
completed  and  his  farewells  said.  The  lanterns 
were  glowing  in  the  compound  above  the  lotus 
pools  and  the  silently  watching  garden  gods.  The 
cart  was  at  the  gate,  waiting  beyond  the  three 
screens  of  dragon-carved  teak-wood  inlaid  with 
mother-of-pearl.  A  silent-footed  servant,  bowing 
low  and  hiding  his  face  behind  crossed  wide 
sleeves,  brought  the  word  to  Chang,  who  rose  and 
walked  slowly  across  the  courtyard,  looking  at  it 
for  the  last  time.  The  red  brick  walls  of  the 
palace  rose  before  him ;  he  passed  its  doorway,  and 
then  turned  again  and  entered  the  great  hall  with 
its  marble  floor  and  huge  Western  fireplaces.  He 


HERBERT  HOOVER  291 

stopped  for  a  moment  to  look  at  the  European 
theater,  at  its  velvet-curtained  stage,  its  machine- 
made  carpets  and  stiff  rows  of  varnished  wooden 
chairs  with  upward-folded  seats.  He  passed 
noiselessly  into  the  drawing-room  and  stood  for 
some  time  looking  about  him,  examining  with  his 
eyes  the  upholstered  chairs,  the  patterned,  shining 
hardwood  floor,  the  Wilton  rugs,  the  lace  cur 
tains.  Then  he  turned  to  go  and  saw  in  the  door 
way  a  young  American  who  spoke  quickly  in 
Chinese,  with  a  rapid  breath  catching  at  the 
words:  "Good  evening,  Chang  Yen  Mao." 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  Wilson, "  he  replied  cour 
teously,  and  made  excuses  for  seeming  incivility. 
The  cart  was  at  the  gate ;  he  was  about  to  depart 
on  an  urgent  journey;  he  regretted  the  necessity 
that  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  entertain  an 
honored  guest. 

Wilson  answered  with  equal  courtesy  that  there 
was  an  error;  no  cart  was  at  the  gate.  'Your 
servants  have  been  mistaken,  Chang  Yen  Mao. 
If  you  will  send  one  to  inquire — f  " 

They  sat,  and  talked  politely.  The  servant  re 
turned,  perplexed.  There  was  no  cart  at  the  gate. 
"Send  for  it,  at  once,"  Chang  commanded. 

There  was  another  interval  of  conversation, 
unspoken  questions  and  indecisions  hidden  by 
irrelevant  words.  Then  Wilson  broke  through 
their  reticence:  "There  was  no  cart,  Chang  Yen 


292  THE  MAKING  OF 

Mao,  because  as  I  came  through  the  gates  I  sent 
it  away.  Chang  Yen  Mao,  it  will  be  better  for 
you  to  remain  in  your  own  palace  to-night. ' ' 

Chang  rose  quickly,  with  a  movement  startling 
in  its  swiftness.  He  stood  straight  to  his  full 
six  feet,  master  in  his  own  house  and  surrounded 
by  servants,  but  his  rising  was  hardly  more  swift 
than  the  appearance  of  Wilson's  revolver.  "Sit 
down,  Chang  Yen  Mao,"  he  said.  "You  are  not 
going  to  Peking  to-night. " 

Chang  Yen  Mao,  standing  quite  still  and  look 
ing  into  those  alien  eyes  above  the  little  spark  of 
light  that  glittered  on  the  revolver  barrel,  said 
nothing. 

"If  you  take  one  step  toward  that  door  or  call 
just  once,  I  will  shoot.  Sit  down,  Chang  Yen 
Mao,  and  listen  to  me." 

So  Chang  Yen  Mao,  perceiving  the  futility  of 
being  killed  by  a  mad  American  while  on  a  journey 
to  be  beheaded,  sat  down,  and  Wilson  also  settled 
comfortably  into  a  chair,  the  revolver  upon  his 
knee,  and  explained  the  situation  with  lucid 
Western  logic.  A  Chinese  friend  of  Chang  Yen 
Mao  had  sent  Wilson  the  news  of  the  death  sen 
tence,  begging  him  to  keep  the  victim  from  Peking 
at  any  cost.  He  himself  had  hastened  to  set  in 
motion  wheels  within  wheels  in  the  Forbidden 
City.  It  might  yet  be  possible  to  prevail  upon  the 
empress  to  withdraw  the  imperial  command. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  293 

Until  it  was  withdrawn  Chang  was  in  honor  bound 
to  hasten  to  obey  it.  But  how  could  he  while  a 
determined  young  man  held  him  covered  with  a 
gun?  "So  we  might  as  well  make  the  best  of  it, 
Chang  Yen  Mao,  and  spend  the  night  in  pleasant 
conversation/'  Wilson  added  cheerfully.  "I  'm 
not  going  to  let  you  out  of  my  sight,  for  I  know  if 
I  do  you  '11  give  me  the  slip  somehow. ' ' 

Chang  Yen  Mao  sat  motionless.  His  hands 
were  hidden  in  the  wide  sleeves,  and  no  twitch 
of  eyelid  or  lip  revealed  what  thoughts  moved 
slowly  behind  his  veiled  eyes  or  what  repressed 
desire  for  life  stirred  within  him.  He  spoke  at 
last  of  irrelevant  things,  a  courteous  man  mak 
ing  conversation  with  a  guest.  So  they  sat 
through  the  night  in  the  lighted  European  draw 
ing-room,  Wilson's  watchful  eyes  struggling  with 
sleepiness,  Chang  Yen  Mao  talking  of  ancient 
poets,  the  revolver  between  them. 

Morning  brought  a  situation  that  hourly  grew 
more  complicated.  Chang  Yen  Mao  could  not  be 
kept  indefinitely  a  prisoner  in  his  own  drawing- 
room.  The  cart  still  waited  at  the  gate,  and  both 
men  knew  that  when  Wilson's  vigilance  for  a  mo 
ment  relaxed  Chang  Yen  Mao  would  step  into  it 
and  set  out  toward  Peking  and  the  headsman's 
block.  But  at  noon  a  second  messenger  arrived, 
bringing  the  tidings  of  a  commuted  sentence. 
Chang  Yen  Mao  might  live,  disgraced.  His  pea- 


294  THE  MAKING  OF 

cock  feather  was  taken  from  him ;  the  red  translu 
cent  jewel  of  a  Number  Two  mandarin  was  shorn 
from  his  cap.  No  longer  might  he  wear  the 
thumb-ring  of  three-colored  jade,  and  never  again 
could  he  enter  the  presence  of  the  empress.  The 
coal-mines  of  Kai  Ping  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
foreign  barbarians  and  not  all  the  money  scrupu 
lously  paid  him  in  dividends  on  his  stock  could 
restore  his  honor  among  his  own  people  or  lift 
him  again  to  the  high  place  he  had  won  by  thirty 
years  of  service  to  the  Dragon  Throne. 

A  broken  man,  still  erect  amid  the  ruin  of  his 
life,  he  said  farewell  to  Herbert  Hoover  on  the 
day  before  the  sailing  of  the  ship  that  would  take 
the  young  American  home.  Their  friendship  had 
withstood  the  calamity  in  which  their  association 
ended,  but  the  memory  of  it  was  bitter  to  the 
younger  man.*  "I  shall  never  return  to  China," 
he  said. 

Twenty-seven  years  old,  a  successful  mining 
engineer  well  known  to  mining  men  of  all  the 
world.  Bewick,  Moreing  had  offered  him  a  junior 
partnership,  and  a  little  later  Lou  Henry  was 
searching  London  for  a  small  house  that  could  be 
made  a  home  center  for  his  journeys. 

Two  years  of  work  as  junior  partner  took  him 
twice  again  around  the  whole  curve  of  the  earth. 
He  knew  now  the  mines  of  Burma,  of  Siberia,  of 
Africa.  Back  in  Stanford  the  undergraduates  in 


HERBERT  HOOVER  295 

the  class  rooms  he  had  known  thrilled  to  the  knowl 
edge  that  Herbert  Hoover,  a  Stanford  man,  was 
the  highest  salaried  mining  engineer  of  his  years 
in  the  world.  At  twenty-seven  he  was  honored  in 
his  profession,  rich  enough  for  his  moderate  needs, 
and  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  he  would 
be  free  to  leave  the  game  of  money-making  for 
ever.  He  was  surrounded  by  men  to  whom  mil 
lions  of  dollars  were  the  counters  with  which  they 
played  the  gigantic  game  of  the  world 's  finance, 
but  he  had  no  ambition  to  become  a  millionaire. 
His  interest  was  still  in  his  work  of  actual  mining, 
in  the  development  of  mines,  their  organization 
and  efficient  production. 

Four  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  the  mark 
at  which  he  would  stop  making  money.  That 
sum,  which  five  years  earlier  would  have  dazzled 
him,  appeared  moderate  enough  now;  it  was  in 
deed  a  small  sum  compared  to  the  amounts  he 
handled  in  his  work.  But  it  would  insure  the 
safety  and  ample  comfort  of  himself  and  his 
family,  and  to  accumulate  more  would  be  foolish. 
His  tastes  and  Lou  Henry's  were  simple,  com 
pared  to  those  of  the  people  they  knew.  They 
cared  for  friends,  but  not  for  society.  Their  home 
was  a  pleasant  place  through  which  flowed  most 
of  the  drift  of  Americans  passing  through  London, 
but  their  English  friends  protested  that  they  did 
not  cultivate  the  right  people  in  the  social  world. 


296  THE  MAKING  OF 

Bert  Hoover  was  indeed,  as  Lou  Henry  said  play 
fully,  a  perfect  bear  to  people  he  did  not  like. 
They  agreed  that  living  was  too  full  of  real  inter 
est  to  be  wasted  on  any  one  who  did  not  give  them 
something  real  in  interest  or  friendship. 

Altogether  he  was  a  happy  man,  vigorously 
alive  in  a  happy  world,  when  he  went  as  usual  to 
his  office  that  morning  after  Boxing  Day  in  1902. 
The  flavor  of  the  holiday  mood  was  still  in  his 
spirit.  The  afternoon  before,  he  had  gone  with 
Lou  Henry  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Eowe,  with  their 
children,  to  a  Christmas  pantomime,  and  there 
had  been  a  supper  later  in  the  warmth  of  a  crack 
ling  fire  and  the  glow  of  the  candles  on  the 
Christmas  tree.  Howe  had  been  a  genial  host, 
and  the  children,  rosy  with  the  excitement  of  such 
late  hours,  had  wakened  in  Bert  Hoover  the  emo 
tion  that  children  always  touched.  It  was  a 
buried  memory  of  his  own  lonely  childhood,  and 
an  aching  pity  for  it,  perhaps,  that  made  him 
wish  to  give  other  children  all  that  he  had  missed. 
Or  perhaps  it  was  the  appeal  of  their  funny  ways 
and  their  ignorance  of  harsh  things.  He  did  not 
analyze  it ;  he  only  felt  tenderness  toward  children. 

He  thought  of  Kowe's  family  as  he  went  up  in 
the  lift  to  Bewick,  Moreing's  offices,  and  behind 
that  thought  was  an  image  of  Bowe  himself.  An 
able  man,  respected  in  the  City  and  relied  upon 
by  Moreing,  the  senior  partner.  Bewick  had  long 


HERBERT  HOOVER  297 

been  only  a  name  to  the  company ;  after  Moreing, 
Rowe  was  the  man  longest  in  the  firm's  service. 
He  had  been  in  the  office  for  ten  years,  and  he 
had  been  taken  into  partnership  at  the  same  time 
Herbert  Hoover  entered  the  firm,  Rowe  as  an  office 
man  handling  financial  matters  and  Hoover  as 
actual  manager  of  mining  properties.  Their  busi 
ness  activities  had  hardly  touched,  but  both  in 
the  office  and  out  of  it  they  respected  and  liked 
each  other. 

The  lingering  impression  left  by  the  pleasant 
holiday  together  took  him  through  Rowe's  office 
for  a  morning  greeting  and  a  moment's  chat. 
The  office  was  empty,  and  passing  through  it  he 
said  to  Rowe's  secretary,  "  Where  's  Mr.  Rowe 
this  morning!" 

She  looked  up  in  surprise.  "Mr.  Rowe  has 
left  town,  sir.  To  be  gone  some  time,  I  under 
stood." 

He  went  on  into  his  own  office,  slightly  puzzled. 
Odd  that  Rowe  had  not  mentioned  the  trip  to  him. 
A  family  matter,  no  doubt.  Some  one  suddenly 
taken  ill.  He  would  call  Mrs.  Rowe  and  ask  if  he 
could  offer  any  help.  He  gave  his  secretary  the 
number  and  began  opening  letters.  But  when  the 
connection  was  made  he  found  himself  trying  to 
talk  to  a  sobbing,  incoherent  voice  that  sent  over 
the  wire  only  a  sensation  of  intolerable  anguish 
and  tragedy.  Mrs.  Rowe  seemed  unable  to  under- 


298  THE  MAKING  OF 

stand  his  eagerness  to  help  her,  or  his  sympathy. 
"I  '11  send  Mrs.  Hoover  over  at  once,"  he  told  her, 
and  called  his  own  home. 

'  *  Something  seems  to  be  terribly  wrong  over  at 
the  Eowes'.  Mrs.  Eowe  wants  you,  I  think. " 

"  I  '11  go  over  right  away,  Bert. ' ' 

"If  there  's  anything  I  can  do,  call  me.  I  '11  be 
here  until  I  hear  from  you." 

When  Lou  Henry's  voice  reached  him  again 
over  the  wire  it  was  shaken  and  mystified.  "I 
can't  understand  Mrs.  Eowe  at  all,  Bert.  She  is 
in  some  frightful  trouble,  hysterical,  and  she 
could  n  't  talk  to  me.  She  gave  me  a  sealed  letter 
for  you.  She  was  crying  so  terribly  that  I  don't 
know  what  she  meant  to  say,  but  it  was  something 
about  Mr.  Eowe's  leaving  the  letter  for  you,  and 
that  she  ought  not  to  give  it  to  you  so  soon,  but  she 
just  couldn't  stand  it,  not  to." 

"Send  it  down  at  once  by  messenger." 

An  hour  later  he  finished  reading  the  incredible 
letter.  Then  he  pressed  the  button  under  the 
edge  of  his  desk,  rose,  and  put  his  hands  deep  into 
his  pockets.  He  found  that  his  secretary  had 
entered  and  that  he  was  looking  at  her  without 
seeing  her.  He  told  her  to  send  for  the  chief  of 
the  accountants  that  audited  Bewick,  Moreing's 
books,  and  then  he  walked  to  the  window  and  stood 
gazing  out.  The  Bewick,  Moreing  Company,  that 
had  seemed  as  solid  as  the  Bank  of  England,  was 


HERBERT  HOOVER  299 

ruined.  Rowe  had  looted  it  and  fled.  He  had 
been  looting  it  for  years.  Seven  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars  had  vanished  into  thin  air  with  him. 
Rowe  in  his  confession  had  made  the  point  that 
the  firm  was  not  legally  responsible ;  he  had  bor 
rowed  money  on  securities  intrusted  to  it,  he  had 
forged  its  name  to  documents,  but  the  law  could 
not  hold  the  company  responsible  for  his  acts. 
Nevertheless  the  company  was  morally  responsi 
ble  for  money  obtained  on  its  credit  and  by  one 
of  its  own  partners. 

Seven  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  other 
partners,  older  men  than  he,  richer  men,  could  per 
haps  stand  their  share  of  the  loss.  His  own  share 
of  it  would  wipe  out  everything  he  had.  All  that 
he  had  earned  and  saved  in  six  years'  hard  work. 
The  home  he  had  planned  in  California,  the  secur 
ity  for  the  future  that  he  had  been  building  around 
himself  and  Lou  Henry,  the  leisure  he  had  thought 
so  near,  were  gone.  It  gave  a  man  a  hollow, 
nauseating  sensation  at  the  solar  plexus.  He  was 
almost  jocular  when  he  turned  from  the  window 
to  greet  the  chief  accountant.  It  was  rather  a 
joke  on  the  man,  to  tell  him  that  the  books  he  had 
audited  for  years  would  show  on  inspection  a  def 
icit  of  seven  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

It  was  humorous,  too,  in  a  way,  to  feel  the  sen 
sation  at  the  other  end  of  the  telephone  wire  when 
he  called  up  the  president  of  a  bank  to  tell  him 


300  HERBERT  HOOVER 

that  the  securities  in  his  vaults  were  forged,  and 
valueless.  He  spent  the  afternoon  doing  that, 
calling  firm  after  firm  as  the  white-faced  account 
ants  dug  their  names  from  their  investigations 
and  reported  them.  Rowe  had  been  devilishly 
clever  about  the  job ;  it  would  be  weeks  before  the 
last  turn  and  twist  of  his  trail  could  be  uncovered. 
But  enough  was  already  apparent  to  show  that 
the  failure  would  be  one  of  the  worst  in  the  City 
for  many  years. 

It  showed  certainly  that  if  the  firm  met  its 
moral  obligations  instead  of  saving  itself  by  legal 
technicalities,  not  only  his  savings  must  go  into 
the  ruin  but  years  of  future  work  as  well.  But 
there  was  no  question  that  Lou  Henry  would  see 
the  matter  as  he  did.  There  was  only  one  course 
to  follow :  the  company  must  pay  the  debts  it  hon 
estly  owed,  regardless  of  the  law's  loopholes. 
And  the  decision  was  in  his  hands,  for  he,  the 
youngest  partner,  was  the  only  one  in  London  at 
the  moment.  The  responsibility  wras  on  his  shoul 
ders,  and  he  must  carry  it. 

Later,  when  the  worst  pressure  on  mind  and 
nerves  was  over,  he  could  think  of  his  personal 
catastrophe.  After  all,  he  was  only  twenty-eight. 
He  could  begin  again. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  basis  of  American  morality  is  a  practical 
attitude  toward  concrete  facts.     God  came 
with  the  pioneers  to  a  new  continent  as  He  went 
from  Egypt  into  the  wilderness  with  the  revolting 
slaves,  a  Leader  and  a  Lawgiver  in  the  immediate 
emergencies  of  a  hard  life.     The  Ten  Command 
ments  were  necessary  principles  of  daily  conduct 
in  those  small  communities  driven  to  mutual  aid 
by  common  dangers  and  difficulties.     It  is  neither 
right  nor  wise  to  anger,  rob,  or  murder  the  neigh 
bor   upon  whose  life   and  well-being  your  own 
safety  depends,  and  it  is  essential  that  a  man 
speak  the  truth  in  a  country  where  life  depends 
upon  a  knowledge  of  facts.     The  early  American 
grasp  of  these  truths  were  expressed  by  that  hard- 
headed  and  successful  man  Benjamin  Franklin, 
whose  career  and  writings  were  one  reiterated 
statement  that  morality  is  the  best  policy.  When 
the  diffusion  of  scientific  knowledge  brought  with 
it  an  increasing  practical-mindedness,  and  religion 
as  a  mystic  spiritual  force  faded  into  even  dimmer 
outlines,  a  simple  and  definite  morality  remained 
still  the  basis  of  the  American  point  of  view. 

301 


302  THE  MAKING  OF 

mean,"  Herbert  Hoover  had  said  in  Stanford,  "to 
make  an  honest  success." 

It  was  his  task  now,  within  the  tottering  struct 
ure  of  one  of  the  world's  greatest  mining  com 
panies,  to  convince  his  associates  that  the  only 
way  to  save  the  building  was  to  let  it  fall.  The 
firm  might  be  kept  from  failure  by  repudiating  its 
responsibility  for  the  money  and  securities  Rowe 
had  taken.  But  morally  that  responsibility  was 
upon  it.  It  must  choose  between  financial  and 
moral  ruin.  Financial  losses  could  be  recovered, 
but  a  moral  integrity  once  shattered  could  not  be 
rebuilt.  Honesty  in  this  crisis  was  not  only  the 
one  course  that  self-respecting  men  could  pursue, 
it  was  also  the  wisest  of  business  policies ;  scrup 
ulous  honesty  would  in  the  end  bring  its  reward. 

It  was  a  hectic  month,  filled  with  conferences, 
debates,  interviews  with  financiers  and  journal 
ists.  The  failure  was  said  to  be  the  worst  that 
had  occurred  in  London  for  a  century.  Moreing 
was  hastening  from  China,  preceded  by  frantic 
cablegrams.  The  quiet  security  and  happiness  of 
Herbert  Hoover's  busy  days  were  gone  as  though 
they  had  never  been ;  the  present  was  a  mass  of 
harassing  details  and  the  future  so  doubtful  that 
he  could  only  postpone  its  problems  until  time 
brought  them  to  him.  His  only  refuge  was  the 
home  to  which  he  returned  exhausted  in  the  de 
pressing  hours  of  the  early  morning,  to  find  Lou 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  303 

Henry  as  gallant  as  ever,  discussing  and  under 
standing  the  whole  situation  with  him  and  in 
complete  accord  with  his  decisions. 

The  failure  of  Bewick,  Moreing  was  a  three- 
weeks'  sensation  in  the  City.  Newspapers  gave 
columns  to  it ;  it  was  the  gossip  of  offices  and  clubs. 
Hoover  was  praised  for  his  attitude  through  it  all, 
for  his  ability  and  his  quickness  in  handling  a  sit 
uation  so  unprecedented  and  so  serious.  But  the 
praise  was  dearly  bought  by  the  sacrifice  of  the 
earnings  of  six  years'  hard  work.  The  flurry  of. 
comment  and  compliment  ended  in  a  month  and 
then  he  settled  down  to  the  four  years'  labor  of 
rebuilding  the  company. 

The  reorganization  of  its  affairs  gave  him  a 
larger  part  of  the  responsibility  and  a  promise 
of  an  increased  share  in  the  profits  yet  to  be 
made.  The  firm's  assets  consisted  of  the  skill  of 
its  members  and  the  prestige  its  financial  integrity 
had  gained  by  his  quick  decision.  Against  these 
stood  a  large  indebtedness  still  to  be  cleared  off, 
and  his  personal  bank-account  was  empty. 

Lou  Henry  was  cheerfully  making  her  own  hats 
and  he  was  working  far  into  the  nights  as  he  had 
done  years  earlier  in  Australia,  when  the  old 
Chinese  trouble  slowly  rose  again,  like  a  myste 
rious  cloud  on  the  horizon.  Little  rumors  ran  be 
fore  it  as  puffs  of  dusty  wind  before  a  storm.  It 
was  whispered  that  there  had  been  something 


304  THE  MAKING  OF 

shady,  something  tricky,  in  his  connection  with 
that  old  affair  of  the  memorandum.  To-day  one 
heard  that  he  had  betrayed  Chinese  who  trusted 
him ;  to-morrow,  that  he  had  refused  to  save  Chang 
Yen  Mao 's  life  at  the  hands  of  a  firing  squad  until 
the  old  Chinese  had  bought  his  help  with  an  offer 
of  fabulously  rich  mines.  It  was  reported  that 
Bewick,  Moreing  had  sent  him  to  China  to  get  the 
mining  concession  and  that,  having  cleverly  got  it 
in  his  own  name,  he  had  held  out  for  a  junior 
partnership  before  he  would  surrender  it.  These 
rumors,  that  vanished  when  a  hand  was  stretched 
to  grasp  them,  that  appeared  again  impervious  to 
reason  and  careless  of  consistency,  were  too 
vague  to  be  combated  and  too  annoying  to  be  en 
tirely  ignored.  It  was  impossible  to  find  their 
source.  They  had  arisen  out  of  nothing,  out  of 
the  air,  created  themselves  between  a  smile  and  a 
glance,  over  tea-cups  on  hotel  verandas  in  China 
and  Japan,  where  life  is  so  wearisome  for  the 
foreigner  that  the  dullest  become  imaginative. 
They  had  risen  like  a  swarm  of  gnats  and  circled 
half  the  world  to  reach  London  far  in  advance  of 
the  ship  that  brought  Chang  Yen  Mao  and  his 
Chinese  associates  to  fight  their  case  in  an  Eng 
lish  court. 

That  dignified  mandarin  and  his  friends  in 
their  garments  of  colored  silk  and  the  caps  of  silk 
and  jewels  below  which  hung  their  long  plaits  of 


HERBERT  HOOVER  305 

hair  braided  with  vermilion  cords,  appeared 
placid  and  fantastic  in  the  gray  streets  of  the 
City.  They  moved  through  it,  like  figures  in  a 
romance,  gazing  with  aloof  and  non-committal 
eyes  upon  the  strangeness  of  London,  and  a  widen 
ing  circle  of  excitement  spread  around  them. 
Wherever  English  newspapers  sent  their  closely 
printed  pages  English  people  read  with  interest 
and  amazement  this  story  of  the  mandarins  who 
had  come  out  of  the  East  to  demand  from  English 
law  redress  for  an  injury  done  them  by  Belgians 
and  Germans.  Many  aspects  of  the  case  were 
without  precedent  in  legal  annals,  and  for  the  mo 
ment  the  picturesque  spectacle  of  Chang  Yen  Mao 
before  a  Lord  Chief  Justice  had  no  rival  in  pop 
ular  sensation.  Rumors  clustering  about  it  ob 
scured  it  like  a  fog  and  in  its  center  with  the 
Chinese  Herbert  Hoover  was  seen  vaguely 
through  the  shifting  mists. 

It  was  a  relief  when  the  routine  of  the  case 
called  him  to  testify  to  his  part  in  the  affair,  to 
establish  clearly  the  validity  of  the  memorandum 
he  had  drawn  so  long  ago  as  mediator  between  the 
two  contesting  factions.  In  short  decisive  sen 
tences,  hard  and  square  as  bricks  piled  upon 
bricks,  he  told  the  plain,  unassailable  facts.  He 
had  taken  the  original  agreement  to  London  upon 
the  authority  and  at  the  request  of  Chang  Yen 
Mao.  He  had  signed  the  memorandum  with  full 


306  THE  MAKING  OF 

authority  from  Bewick,  Moreing.  He  had  con 
sistently  and  continually  maintained  that  the 
terms  of  the  memorandum  should  be  carried  out. 
He  had  protested  at  every  opportunity  against  the 
action  of  the  board  of  directors  in  repudiating  it. 
The  success  of  the  Chinese  suit  hung  upon  his 
testimony,  and  his  testimony  stood  unshaken  and 
incontrovertible  by  any  other  evidence.  The  case 
dragged  on  through  days  and  weeks,  but  it  was 
impossible  to  challenge  successfully  the  facts  as 
he  had  stated  them,  and  judgment  was  given  in 
favor  of  the  Chinese.  Out  of  the  conflict  of  inter 
ests  and  passions  he  emerged  with  the  respect  and 
confidence  of  all  the  antagonists;  the  Chinese  en 
trusted  to  him  the  care  of  their  interest  in 
Europe;  the  principal  member  of  the  Hamburg 
group  appointed  him  its  representative  in  London 
mining  companies;  and  the  Belgians  remembered 
him  many  years  later  as  a  man  of  great  ability 
and  unimpeachable  honesty. 

Four  years  of  work,  four  years  of  anxieties  and 
hardships,  paid  for  that  decision  to  make  good 
Kowe's  defalcation.  There  was  to  him  little  of 
the  dramatic  or  the  picturesque  about  his  labors, 
in  Australia,  in  America,  in  Burma  and  China. 
The  old  routes  around  the  world  were  familiar  to 
him;  the  days  brought  him  only  the  old  problems 
stated  in  fresh  terms  or  new  problems  to  be  met 
with  hard  thought  and  quick  action.  The  firm 


HERBERT  HOOVER  307 

was  getting  on  its  feet  again ;  in  helping  to  put  it 
there  he  was  learning  the  coils  and  tangles  of  in 
ternational  finance,  the  problems  of  national  and 
international  affairs,  the  whole  intricate  web  of 
human  affairs.  He  was  always  working  just  a 
little  too  hard ;  he  was  always  just  a  little  behind 
the  thing  he  wished  to  know  to-morrow.  There 
was  not  time  enough  in  the  day  for  its  difficulties, 
nor  hours  enough  of  night  before  sleep  overpow 
ered  him  to  get  all  that  he  wanted  of  history,  poli 
tics,  or  economics  from  the  books  and  reports  that 
he  always  carried  with  him.  It  was  a  life  so  full 
that  it  had  no  space  for  introspection ;  each  experi 
ence,  following  swiftly  upon  the  one  before  it,  did 
not  so  much  strike  upon  a  fresh  surface  as  com 
press  itself  quickly  into  the  mass  of  experience 
that  imperceptibly  made  him  older,  more  able, 
more  sophisticated. 

He  was  an  organizer,  a  man  whose  life  was  the 
molding  of  men  and  materials  into  organizations 
that  functioned  swiftly  and  smoothly,  without 
waste,  producing  efficiently  the  metals  that  make 
mankind  master  of  the  earth,  and  he  saw  a  world 
unorganized,  chaotic,  wasteful;  a  mass  of  men 
tumultuous  with  conflicting  desires,  without  order, 
reason,  or  definite  purpose.  He  was  a  man  whose 
mind  worked  logically  and  precisely,  and  he  saw 
whole  nations  swayed  by  emotions  into  acts  of 
folly,  seizing  like  children  the  glittering  things 


308  THE  MAKING  OF 

closest  to  them  without  thought  for  to-morrow. 
The  secrets  of  European  courts,  of  republican  pol 
itics,  the  intrigues  and  betrayals  and  sordid  bar 
gainings  concealed  by  great  names,  were  known 
to  him ;  he  had  crossed  the  horizons  beyond  which 
others  imagined  wisdom  and  nobility  to  be,  and 
he  knew  that  life  was  everywhere  the  same,  a 
chaos  of  stupidities  and  greeds  and  futile  ideal 
isms.  But  his  love  for  humanity  and  his  faith 
in  it  were  not  shaken.  He  was  made  of  the 
blood  of  democrats,  and  a  belief  in  democracy  is 
essentially  a  belief  in  the  intelligence  and  honor 
of  humanity.  He  loved  mankind  because  he 
loved  it;  the  source  of  his  faith  was  deeper  than 
the  roots  of  the  logic  with  which  he  defended  it.- 
There  was  no  flavor  of  world-weary  cynicism  in 
the  minds  of  the  men  and  women  who,  in  helping 
to  create  the  young,  vigorous,  hopeful  America, 
had  created  him. 

And  he  was  happy.  Despite  discouragements, 
deferred  hopes,  and  exhausting  labor,  he  was 
happy.  He  was  surrounded  by  loyal  friends  who 
had  known  him  in  those  crises  of  danger  or  temp 
tation  that  test  men  and  friendships,  and  the  basis 
of  his  life  was  an  increasing  content  and  satisfac 
tion  created  by  those  intimate  personal  emotions 
which,  given  so  little  time  for  expression,  still 
colored  all  the  hours  of  his  days.  He  was  away 


HERBERT  HOOVER  309 

from  Ms  home  for  months  together ;  when  he  was 
in  London  his  time  was  crowded  with  other  things ; 
but  it  was  there  that  his  own  life  centered,  in  a 
companionship  that  never  ceased  to  be  a  fresh 
joy,  and  in  plans  and  hopes  for  the  children.  He 
was  a  father  now ;  father  of  Herbert,  whose  com 
ing  had  been  a  long  anxiety  and  a  burst  of  song  in 
the  troubled  months  of  1904,  and  of  Allan,  two 
years  younger,  whose  name  remembered  the  Uncle 
Allan  who  had  taken  the  orphaned  Bertie  on  his 
knee  in  the  desolate  house  at  West  Branch.  All 
his  free  time  was  given  to  those  chubby  boys,  with 
their  wondering  eyes  and  clutching  fingers,  and  to 
the  older  Lou  Henry  in  whose  presence  no  one 
could  cast  one  wistful  backward  glance  at  the 
memory  of  the  girl  who  had  leaped  the  fences  at 
Stanford. 

It  had  always  been  hard  to  leave  her;  it  was 
now  impossible.  With  a  decision  that  listened  to 
no  warning  advice  they  picked  up  their  home  and 
carried  it  wherever  his  work  took  him.  Before 
they  celebrated  the  infant  Herbert's  first  birthday 
he  had  traveled  in  his  mother's  arms  twice  around 
the  world.  Home  moved  with  them,  on  passenger 
liners  and  trains,  in  stage-coaches  and  automo 
biles.  The  surroundings  did  not  matter:  home 
was  where  they  were  together.  Sometime  when 
they  could  afford  it  they  would  have  their  house  in 


310  THE  MAKING  OF 

California  and  collect  there  all  the  books,  pictures, 
furniture  and  clothing  scattered  from  Shanghai  to 
New  York. 

Four  years,  and  the  Bewick,  Moreing  com 
pany  was  on  its  feet  once  more,  clear  of  debt, 
prosperous,  with  a  prestige  of  honesty  and  ac 
complishment  greater  than  before  the  failure. 
He  remained  with  it  four  years  longer,  organizing 
mining  companies  in  London  and  mines  in  Aus 
tralia,  Korea,  Siberia,  and  Burma,  and  looking 
forward  to  the  time  when  his  resources  would 
justify  his  starting  in  business  for  himself  as  a 
consulting  engineer. 

At  last  he  opened  his  own  offices  in  the  mining 
center  of  the  world,  Lou  Henry  and  the  children 
were  settled  in  the  Red  House,  and  in  the  imper 
ceptible  relaxing  of  anxieties  he  became  more  ex 
pressive  of  the  geniality  that  had  been  hidden  at 
first  by  the  inhibitions  of  his  childhood  and  later 
by  the  demands  of  his  work.  The  Eed  House  be 
came  a  place  remembered  by  Americans  as  a  bit 
of  home  in  London;  a  house  of  sunshine  or  fire 
light,  children  and  dogs,  where  one  informally 
dropped  in  to  meet  interesting  Americans  just 
arrived  from  Siberia,  Peru,  Egypt,  or  Persia. 
Herbert  Hoover,  quietly  one  of  the  changing 
group  around  the  fire,  listened  with  enjoyment 
to  the  talk  full  of  news  and  anecdote  and 
repartee,  watched  Lou  Henry's  deft  and  graceful 


HERBERT  HOOVEE  311 

handling  of  a  social  situation,  and  spoke  when  he 
had  something  to  say.  Those  laconic  sentences 
packed  with  meaning  or  the  long  tales  of  his  ad 
ventures  in  far  places,  told  with  restraint  and 
humor,  were  his  expression  of  the  pleasure  he 
found  in  simply  friendly  contacts  with  people. 
His  humor  was  the  humor  of  America, — young  as 
that  nation  is  young,  filled  with  a  boy's  sense  of 
the  ridiculous  and  delight  in  abrupt  surprise, — but 
Jiis  thought  was  the  carefully  reached  conclusion 
of  a  man  who  knew  the  peoples  and  governments 
of  the  earth. 

It  was  in  1910  that  Dr.  Jordan,  returning  to 
Stanford  from  peace  conferences  at  The  Hague, 
stopped  at  the  Bed  House  for  a  visit  with  the  Bert 
Hoover  whose  friend  he  had  been  since  the  days 
at  Adalante  Villa.  He  told  of  the  new  Hague 
rulings,  of  the  growth  of  international  under 
standing,  of  the  hope  that  the  world  would  at  last 
begin  that  era  of  sanity  and  intelligent  self-inter 
est  that  would  make  wars  impossible.  That  vision 
of  a  human  society  in  order,  functioning  for  the 
welfare  of  human  beings,  was  a  dream  to  arouse 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  Quaker  boy  who  had  become 
a  great  engineer  with  interests  crossing  every 
frontier  between  nations.  Hoover  listened  with 
out  comment  to  the  talk  circling  the  dinner-table, 
and  when  he  spoke  at  last  he  said  only  a  few  half- 
humorous  words:  "The  world  was  never  so  full 


312  THE  MAKING  OF 

of  peace  talk — or  so  busy  putting  on  its  side- 
weapons.  " 

It  was  two  years,  then,  since  he  had  given  at 
Stanford  the  lectures  that  he  collected  and  pub 
lished  as  "Practical  Mining,"  the  book  that  he  had 
intended  to  be  his  valedictory  to  his  profession. 
Two  years  earlier  he  had  had  money  enough  to 
safeguard  the  future  of  his  family ;  he  had  reached 
the  point  at  which  he  had  dreamed  of  leaving 
money-making  and  devoting  his  intelligence  and 
energy  to  other  tasks.  But  the  eight  years  that 
had  passed  since  the  morning  he  received  Bowe's 
letter  had  involved  him  too  deeply  in  his  work. 
After  all,  the  possession  of  money  did  not  make 
him  free.  The  master  of  the  many  organizations 
he  had  created  was  their  slave.  He  had  begun 
tasks,  organized  companies,  formulated  plans, 
that  he  could  not  abandon,  and  each  venture  he 
undertook  committed  him  to  others  that  led  still 
further  into  the  future.  Young  engineers  in  all 
the  corners  of  the  earth  depended  on  him  as  he  had 
depended  on  Bewick,  Moreing  in  the  old  days. 
Stock-holders  looked  to  him  for  dividends,  miners 
drew  their  living  from  his  pay-rolls.  He  was 
entangled  in  the  web  of  a  world  commercialism 
and  he  could  not  escape  without  breaking  threads. 

The  outward  compulsions  upon  him  were  aided, 
too,  by  changes  within  himself.  The  Great  Game 
he  had  thought  to  play  and  quit  had  captured  him. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  313 

He  had  been  outside  it  once;  lie  had  considered 
himself  always  essentially  outside  it,  always  mas 
ter  of  himself,  able  to  resist  its  temptations  and  to 
leave  it  when  he  chose.  The  lures  by  which  it 
enticed  others  had  been  meaningless  to  him:  he 
did  not  want  money  for  its  own  sake,  he  did  not 
care  for  high  social  position,  for  luxuries,  for 
the  purchased  respect  of  other  men.  But  no  one 
can  resist  the  age  in  which  he  lives.  Its  spirit 
controls  all  men's  lives,  making  them  either  sub 
servient  to  it  or  rebels  against  it.  The  Great 
Game  had  captured  him  by  the  opportunity  it 
offered  for  concrete  accomplishment.  He  did  not 
want  money  or  fame  or  ease,  but  he  did  want 
power, — the  power  to  do  the  things  he  thought 
worth  doing. 

There  was,  for  instance,  the  matter  of  the  lead 
and  silver  mines  in  Burma.  He  had  explored 
those  ancient  abandoned  workings  of  the  Chinese 
on  outcroppings  long  ago  exhausted.  He  had 
studied  the  geology  of  the  hills,  the  direction  of 
strata  and  streams,  under  the  heat  of  the  Burmese 
sun  in  the  breath  of  miasmatic  swamps.  He  had 
lain  for  six  delirious  weeks  in  the  grip  of  malarial 
fever  to  pay  for  his  knowledge  of  those  mines. 
And  he  was  convinced  that  proper  exploration 
and  development  would  uncover  there  a  wealth  of 
lead  and  silver. 

He  had  returned  to  London  to  organize  the  com- 


314  THE  MAKING  OF 

pany  to  do  the  work.  It  had  been  difficult  to  do; 
his  personal  word  and  his  authority  as  an  expert 
stood  as  guarantee  that  the  men  who  had  listened 
to  him  and  invested  in  the  project  would  not  lose. 
Yet  there  were  troubles  upon  troubles  within  the 
company;  he  had  to  hold  directors  in  line,  smooth 
down  disputes,  reconcile  antagonistic  personali 
ties.  He  was  convinced  that  if  with  one  hand  he 
could  hold  the  company  together  and  with  the 
other  develop  the  Burmese  properties,  he  could 
produce  enormously  rich  lead  and  silver  mines  in 
those  abandoned  fields.  It  meant  more  wealth 
for  the  world ;  it  meant  new  employment  for  thou 
sands  of  men;  it  meant  above  all  a  big  job  well 
done.  But  it  would  take  years  to  accomplish. 

There  was,  too,  his  interest  in  the  handling  of 
low-grade  ores.  That  had  become,  in  a  way,  his 
special  field, — taking  the  management  of  worked- 
out  mines  and  reviving  fresh  values  in  them.  He 
had  done  it  first  with  the  tailings-dumps  of  old 
Australian  mines.  No  one  had  believed  that  the 
i^tals  in  them  could  ever  be  extracted  in  paying 
quantities.  They  had  been  dug  from  the  earth 
<mly  to  lie  unused  in  wind  and  weather,  returning 
:o  the  earth.  He  had  believed  that  they  could  be 
utilized,  and  he  had  held  to  that  belief  through 
three  years  of  fruitless  experiment,  fighting  a 
ceaseless  battle  for  more  faith  and  more  capital 
while  his  chemists  struggled  with  the  technical 


HERBERT  HOOVER  315 

problems.  He  had  won :  a  whole  district  of  Aus 
tralia  had  leaped  into  new  life,  and  the  refuse  of 
the  mines  was  producing  lead  and  silver  and  zinc. 

The  whole  surface  of  the  earth  was  covered 
with  opportunity  for  such  reorganization — the 
unexploited  wealth  of  Siberia,  where  he  had  taken 
charge  of  an  entire  district,  a  small  principality 
of  175,000  people,  feeding,  clothing  and  giving 
new  energy  to  them  all  by  the  working  of  its 
mines ;  the  back  country  of  Korea,  where  he  had 
taught  the  little  brown  men  American  methods  of 
production ;  the  veldt  of  South  Africa ;  the  moun 
tains  of  California.  There  was  room  enough  in 
the  work  he  was  doing  for  all  a  man  could  have 
of  constructive  imagination  and  practical  intelli 
gence.  He  had  gone  into  the  game  of  money- 
making  because  he  needed  money ;  he  stayed  in  it 
now  because  there  was  more  than  money  in  it. 
All  that  the  world  could  offer  of  opportunity  for 
usefulness,  for  self -development,  for  satisfaction, 
was  in  the  game  of  money-making,  because  all  the 
world  was  there. 

And  in  his  hours  of  recreation  he  and  Lou 
Henry  finished  the  fascinating  work  of  translat 
ing  that  old  Latin  work,  "Des  Res  Metallica,"  and 
published  it,  as  the  first  complete  translation  of 
the  first  book  on  mining  deserved  to  be  published, 
in  all  the  luxury  of  parchment  and  vellum,  as  their 
gift  to  the  literature  of  mining. 


316  THE  MAKING  OF 

The  one  part  of  his  dream  that  he  did  not  re 
linquish  was  the  home  in  California.  As  soon  as 
he  could  get  away  from  his  most  pressing  work  in 
the  big  mining  center  he  was  going  home.  Ever 
since  he  left  China  he  had  maintained  his  offices 
in  San  Francisco,  and  his  hotel  rooms  were  always 
waiting  for  him  there,  as  other  rooms  waited  in 
Shanghai,  Melbourne,  and  New  York.  He  was  a 
trustee  of  Stanford  University,  busy  with  plans 
for  it,  building  there  the  students'  club-house  that 
he  hoped  would  help  to  keep  Stanford's  democracy 
secure  against  the  influence  of  fraternities,  plan 
ning  to  make  the  old  Quad  again  what  it  had  been 
when  he  was  a  boy  there,  a  gathering-place  for  all 
the  students  in  the  intervals  of  class-room  work. 

In  the  spring  of  1914,  as  usual,  he  was  in  San 
Francisco.  He  knew  it  as  he  knew  all  the  cities 
of  the  world, — those  knots  in  the  network  of  in 
dustry,  finance,  and  politics  woven  around  the 
earth.  He  knew  its  tangled  affairs,  its  connec 
tions  with  the  Orient  and  with  New  York  and  Lon 
don,  its  internal  conflicts  that  still  expressed  in 
violent  emotion  and  melodramatic  event  the  spirit 
of  the  days  of  Forty-nine.  It  was  perhaps  that 
spirit, — bold  and  brusk  and  free  despite  increas 
ing  wealth  and  poverty, — that  flavor  of  the  pio 
neer  that  persisted  among  banks  and  factories  and 
labor  unions,  that  held  him  more  than  the  beauty 
of  Paris  or  the  picturesqueness  of  Bombay. 


HERBERT  HOOVER  317 

There  was  the  breath  of  freedom  in  the  salt  winds 
driving  the  white  fog  over  Twin  Peaks  at  the  top 
of  Market  Street;  there  were  dauntlessness  and 
daring  in  the  gray  buildings  that  climbed  toward 
the  sky  on  every  hillside.  When  from  the  deck 
of  the  ferry-boat  he  saw  before  him  the  blue  dis 
tances  of  San  Francisco  Bay,  the  sea-gulls  crying 
in  the  sparkling  air,  the  spreading  miles  of  docks 
and  shipping  and  beyond  them  the  triumphant 
jagged  sky-line  of  the  city  that  had  rebuilt  itself 
on  its  own  ruins,  he  knew  that  he  was  coming 
home. 

San  Francisco  was  happy  in  that  spring  of  1914. 
She  was  once  more  the  city,  gay  and  debonair, 
that  eight  years  earlier  had  crumbled  in  one  ter 
rible  dawn  into  heaps  of  flaming  ruins.  The 
banks  stood  once  more  on  their  old  sites,  renewed 
in  walls  of  fresh  marble;  the  shops  were  more 
resplendent  than  before  along  the  wide  walks  of 
Grant  Avenue.  If  there  were  still  piles  of  melted 
bricks  in  the  vacant  spaces,  cracks  in  the  side 
walks,  and  ruins  where  the  City  Hall  had  been, 
still  the  old  flower  stands  at  Market  and  Kearney 
scented  the  sea-winds  with  perfume  once  more 
and  the  new  Chinatown  was  awake  at  night  with 
colored  lanterns  and  crashing  music.  There  was 
still  anxiety  in  the  counting-houses;  many  a  gal 
lant  facade  concealed  empty  vaults  and  unpaid 
debts;  but  San  Francisco  was  rebuilt,  and  San 


318  THE  MAKING  OF 

Francisco  was  celebrating.  She  planned  the 
greatest  fair  the  world  had  ever  known,  the  most 
fantastically  beautiful  city  of  magic,  to  be  built 
by  artists  for  lovers  of  beauty  and  mirth. 

No  true  son  of  San  Francisco  could  fail  to  help 
her  make  her  dream  come  true.  Herbert  Hoover 
had  planned  to  spend  a  summer  at  Stanford, 
whose  own  walls  were  being  rebuilt  on  new  and 
larger  plans ;  he  had  planned  to  rest  on  the  white 
sand  beaches  of  Monterey  and  to  visit  again  the 
mountains  of  Santa  Cruz.  But  San  Francisco 
had  encountered  in  Europe  an  inexplicable  reluct 
ance  to  join  in  her  holiday.  Germany,  France, 
England,  Spain,  invited  to  send  their  treasures  of 
art  and  triumphs  of  manufacture  to  the  fair,  hesi 
tated  and  delayed  their  replies.  Was  this  a  slight 
put  upon  San  Francisco, — this  threatened  failure 
to  do  for  her  what  had  been  done  for  Chicago? 
Some  one  must  be  sent  unofficially  to  inquire,  to 
press  the  point,  to  bring  the  nations  of  Europe  to 
San  Francisco's  fete  in  1915.  Herbert  Hoover 
was  the  man  to  do  it. 

He  left  in  June  for  the  quick  journey  across 
the  Atlantic  and  back.  He  understood  the  fears 
at  work  in  England  and  on  the  Continent ;  but  who 
believed,  until  the  fact  was  there,  that  in  some 
way,  at  the  last  moment,  the  monstrous  folly  of  a 
world  war  would  not  be  prevented  once  more? 
The  mounting  armaments  of  the  nations,  the  tre- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  319 

mendous  military  forces,  the  growing  tension  on 
the  meeting  frontiers  of  imperialistic  commerciaL 
isms,  had  so  long  kept  the  thought  of  war  before 
all  Europe  that  one  had  grown  accustomed  to  it  as 
to  a  chronic  illness,  and  when  the  end  came  it 
brought  all  the  shock  of  the  unexpected.  War! 

Herbert  Hoover's  business  interests  were  in  all 
parts  of  the  world.  Stockholders  of  every  nation 
were  in  his  companies.  His  wide,  interweaving 
affairs  were  part  of  the  whole  web  of  international 
credits  that  makes  modern  civilization  possible 
and  that  crosses  every  national  frontier.  That 
web  was  abruptly  torn  across,  and  everything  that 
depended  upon  it  fell  into  chaos.  Credits 
disappeared,  stock  certificates  became  pieces  of 
paper,  currency  itself  lost  its  value  in  the  sudden 
instinctive  attempts  to  readjust  a  complex  civil 
ization  to  the  primitive  barbarism  of  war. 
Checks,  drafts,  letters  of  credit,  even  bank-notes, 
were  of  no  more  use  than  they  would  have  been 
to  a  man  who  had  suddenly  found  himself  in  the 
Middle  Ages  with  his  pockets  full  of  them.  Gold 
disappeared. 

This  was  the  result  of  the  first  shock.  It  was 
necessary  only  to  hold  firm  and  let  it  pass.  The 
whole  machinery  of  human  living  could  not  be 
destroyed  in  a  moment.  It  was  broken  in  two; 
each  half  would  continue  to  function,  crippled,  but 
with  wheels  flying  faster  and  carrying  heavier 


320  THE  MAKING  OF 

loads.  Readjustment  was  necessary,  repairs, 
hastily  improvised  makeshifts  for  lost  parts.  But 
the  machine  would  continue  to  run,  because  it 
must. 

Had  he  been  a  financier,  a  promoter  and  spec 
ulator  only,  he  might  have  been  ruined.  But  he 
had  dealt  with  actual  properties  and  he  held  real 
values,  values  increased  by  war's  insatiable  need 
for  metals.  In  this  the  most  serious  crisis  his 
business  affairs  had  encountered  he  would  need 
to  use  every  energy  and  every  resource  of  initia 
tive  and  intelligence,  but  he  would  be  able  to 
handle  it,  to  protect  stock-holders  and  employees 
and  keep  the  mines  going. 

The  greatest  strain  upon  his  immediate  per 
sonal  finances  came  from  the  friends  and  acquaint 
ances  who,  escaping  penniless  across  the  Channel, 
fell  upon  him  with  brief  recitals  of  adventures  and 
requests  for  loans.  Dozens,  scores,  hundreds  of 
them,  poured  through  his  offices  and  crowded  the 
Bed  House,  bringing  their  friends  and  their 
friends'  friends,  sure  of  his  help.  Strangers 
waylaid  him  with  the  simple  statement,  "I  'm  an 
American."  With  the  same  simplicity  he  gave 
them  money  as  he  had  given  it  to  unknown  Stan 
ford  students  through  Lester  Hinsdale's  hands, 
"just  a  loan  to  help  them  over  the  hard  places." 
Fifty  thousand  dollars  was  taken  from  his  hands 
during  that  first  week  of  panic  in  London;  his 


HERBERT  HOOVER  321 

pockets  were  full  of  scrawled  I  0  IPs  signed  by 
strange  names,  and  the  necessity  of  organizing 
first  aid  to  stranded  Americans  was  evident. 

In  the  American  Embassy,  where  the  corridors 
were  jammed  with  distraught  citizens  and  the 
overworked  staff  could  not  handle  the  situation, 
Dr.  Page  threw  up  his  hands  and  gave  his  secre 
tary  Herbert  Hoover's  telephone  number.  Some 
thing  must  be  done ;  Hoover  was  the  man  to  do 
it.  ' '  All  right,  I  will.  See  you  at  six  o  'clock. ' ' 

It  was  a  trifling  matter  or  organization,  the 
work  he  had  been  doing  for  years.  As  he  had 
paused  for  a  moment  in  the  siege  of  Tien-Tsin  to 
organize  a  building-and-loan  company,  so  he  now 
created  time  in  the  midst  of  his  work  to  organize 
the  American  relief  funds.  He  and  his  business 
friends  contributed  two  hundred  thousand  dollars 
immediately;  the  United  States  Government  sent 
another  quarter  of  a  million  in  gold;  a  floor  was 
rented  in  the  Hotel  Savoy,  a  staff  was  assembled 
and  organized.  After  that  it  was  merely  a  matter 
of  supervision,  of  keeping  the  wheels  running 
swiftly  and  smoothly  and  getting  the  Americans 
home  without  red-tape  delays.  Drafts,  letters  of 
credit,  and  checks  were  cashed,  train  and  steamer 
passages  secured,  and  one  hundred  thousand 
Americans  were  moved  with  precision  and  des 
patch  through  the  chaos  of  London.  It  was  a 
simple  matter,  hardly  more  than  a  detail  among 


322  THE  MAKING  OF 

the  many  crises  he  was  meeting.  For  the  war  was 
not  a  matter  of  newspaper  head-lines  and  personal 
emotion  to  him;  a  world  was  going  to  pieces  be 
neath  his  feet  and  all  that  had  made  his  business 
life  was  breaking  up  with  it. 

He  had  built  upon  organization  and  order,  and 
the  great  commercial  organizations  of  the  earth 
were  destroying  themselves.  He  felt  the  common 
anguish  of  those  terrible  days  when  the  stupend 
ous  engines  of  murder  first  began  their  work  on 
living  human  bodies ;  he  felt,  too,  the  suffering  of 
a  man  who  knew  that  the  iron  wheels  were  destroy 
ing  civilization.  The  energies  of  Europe  were 
turned  to  destruction,  and  he  knew  by  what  a  nar 
row  margin  those  energies  had  fed  and  clothed 
the  European  peoples  from  year  to  year.  No  vic 
tory  could  come  from  the  war,  though  the  Central 
Empires  or  the  Allies  imposed  the  barren  peace. 
And  in  this  suffering,  while  London  recovered 
from  its  first  dumb  shock  to  grow  hysterical 
around  him,  he  must  get  together  the  broken 
pieces  of  his  own  work  for  the  clamoring  stock 
holders  and  anxious  employees  who  depended 
upon  him.  A  certain  momentum  carried  him  on 
with  the  job ;  the  habit  of  a  lifetime  is  not  changed 
in  a  moment.  There  was  a  relief  in  concentrating 
on  immediate  hard  work,  for  a  busy  mind  deadens 
the  emotions.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Channel 
the  march  of  the  Germans  was  stopped  by  the 


HERBERT  HOOVER 

desperate  battle  that  sent  a  wave  of  black  across 
England,  and  the  long  struggle  began.  Belgium 
was  doomed ;  the  little  nation  that  he  knew  so  well 
would  die,  either  under  the  harshness  of  the  Ger 
man  armies  or  within  the  iron  ring  of  the  English 
blockade.  And  from  Belgium  came  a  cry  to  him 
for  help. 

That  appeal  from  a  nation  sentenced  to  starva 
tion  came  to  him  during  the  most  serious  crisis 
he  had  known  in  his  own  affairs.  The  Belgian 
mining  engineers  who  had  known  him  since  the 
days  in  China  sent  Millard  Shaler,  an  American 
mining  engineer,  through  the  enemy  lines  to  beg 
him  to  save  Belgium.  It  was  a  question  of  food 
for  seven  million  persons,  men,  women  and  chil 
dren.  A  tremendous  job.  A  job  that  must  be 
done  quickly  and  well.  Only  a  mining  engineer 
could  do  it,  the  Belgians  urged,  and  of  mining  engi 
neers  Herbert  Hoover  was  the  man.  It  was  a 
matter,  of  course,  for  diplomatic  negotiation.  He 
sent  Millard  Shaler  to  Dr.  Page. 

He  understood  the  situation  in  Belgium  without 
explanation.  That  nation  of  towns  and  factories 
was  like  a  city ;  cut  off  from  communication  with 
agricultural  countries  it  would  starve  in  two 
months.  Under  normal  conditions  it  imported 
seventy-five  per  cent,  of  its  grains  and  fifty  per 
cent,  of  its  other  foods.  Now  the  march  of  the 
German  armies  had  brought  it  within  the  block- 


324  THE  MAKING  OF 

ade;  Germany,  herself  in  a  state  of  siege,  and 
hoarding  food,  would  not  share  her  supplies  with 
the  angry  people  who  had  prevented  her  trium 
phal  entry  into  Paris.  Neither  would  she  let  them 
import  gold  to  pay  for  food  from  neutral  coun 
tries,  even  though  the  Allies  would  relax  the  block 
ade  on  food  for  Belgians. 

Seven  million  persons.  Peaceful,  hard-working 
civilians  caught  between  the  armies.  To  feed 
them  under  normal  conditions  would  be  the  big 
gest  commissary  job  in  history,  a  task  greater 
than  feeding  the  armies  of  the  Allies.  To  do  it 
now  would  involve  all  the  tangle  of  diplomacy  be-i 
tween  England  and  Germany  and  neutral  Amer 
ica.  It  seemed  impossible. 

But  the  starvation  of  seven  million  hostages  in 
conquered  territory  also  was  impossible.  A  Bel-> 
gian  delegation  was  passed  through  the  German 
lines  to  carry  Germany's  offer  to  England.  The 
Germans  held  Antwerp  and  the  whole  of  Belgium 
with  all  her  food.  Germany  was  blockaded.  She 
would  feed  the  Belgians  if  England  would  lift  the 
blockade. 

England  replied  that  she  would  not  lift  the 
blockade.  Under  The  Hague  Conference  rules 
Germany  was  bound  to  feed  the  Belgians.  Let 
her  do  it. 

Germany  offered  an  alternative.  She  would 
permit  America  to  send  food  to  Belgium  through 


HERBERT  HOOVER  325 

Holland  with  the  Allies'  consent,  provided  that 
the  work  was  done  entirely  by  Americans  under 
German  surveillance.  The  Allies  gave  their  per 
mission,  and  Dr.  Page  sent  for  Herbert  Hoover. 

He  was  asked  to  give  up  the  work  of  his  lifetime. 
He  was  asked  to  give  it  up  in  a  crisis  that  would 
mean  the  loss  of  nearly  the  whole  of  his  fortune. 
It  is  not  so  easy  to  begin  again  at  forty.  All  that 
the  years  had  taught  him  of  self-interest  and  per 
sonal  ambition  was  against  his  accepting  the  re 
sponsibility  for  feeding  Belgium.  After  all, 
there  were  other  engineers. 

Dr.  Page  insisted  that  he  was  the  one  American 
with  the  ability  and  the  knowledge  of  Europe  that 
the  work  demanded.  The  Belgian  delegation  en 
dorsed  the  opinion,  converging  upon  him  the  in 
tensity  of  their  reliance  on  him  and  the  despair  of 
a  dying  nation. 

"Gentlemen,  you  are  asking  me  to  give  up  not 
only  my  own  fortune  but  a  responsibility  to  my 
stock-holders.  I  must  have  time  to  think  it  oven 
Give  me  two  days." 

He  went  home  to  the  Red  House  to  talk  it  over 
with  Lou  Henry.  It  was  not  a  decision  to  be 
easily  made.  He  knew  the  difficulties  of  the  work, 
the  endless  heartbreaking  complications  that  he 
would  have  to  meet  day  after  day  in  handling  a 
task  of  such  delicacy  between  Germany  and  Eng 
land.  He  knew  what  he  must  give  up,  both  for 


326  THE  MAKING  OF 

himself  and  for  wife  and  sons.  The  fruits  of 
twenty  years'  hard  work,  all  that  he  had  striven 
toward  since  the  old  days  at  Stanford.  The  lead 
and  silver  mines  of  Burma,  that  had  only  that  sum 
mer  justified  his  belief  by  revealing  ore  of  almost 
incredible  richness,  and  that  were  still  to  be  de 
veloped.  And  all  the  other  plans  and  projects  he 
had  formulated  or  begun  to  carry  out. 

Lou  Henry  met  the  question  seriously  and  with 
understanding.  He  was  offered  an  opportunity 
to  do  a  big  humanitarian  task.  An  entire  nation 
with  all  its  women  and  little  children  was  starv 
ing;  no  personal  consideration  could  enter  into  the 
question  of  trying  to  save  them.  If  he  could  do 
the  work,  if  he  could  arrange  to  leave  his  business 
without  ruining  others,  he  ought  to  do  it. 

He  walked  the  length  of  his  room  and  back  all 
that  night,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  his  head  bent, 
thinking;  ranging  methodically  in  order  all  the 
arguments  on  each  side,  as  he  had  done  long  before 
in  choosing  between  geology  and  mining.  The 
seven  million  human  beings  that  he  might  be  able 
to  save  were  a  factor  that  nothing  could  balance.* 
It  was  after  all  the  kind  of  work  that  he  had 
wished  to  do,  and  he  must  take  it  when  it  came. 

There  was  no  need  for  melodrama  about  the 
thing.  It  was  a  big  job,  that  was  all;  and  in  its 
essentials,  aside  from  its  diplomatic  aspects,  it 
was  the  kind  of  work  he  had  been  doing  for  fifteen 


HERBERT  HOOVER  327 

years.  The  thing  to  do  was  to  get  at  it.  He  saw 
Dr.  Page  at  the  American  Embassy  and  announced 
his  decision:  "Well,  I  guess  I  Ve  got  to  let  the 
fortune  go  to  blazes.  I  'm  going  to  take  the  Bel 
gian  job." 

Then  he  resigned  from  all  his  mining  companies 
and  went  to  work.  The  sensation  in  the  City  was 
lost  in  the  storm  of  greater  emotions  sweeping 
England.  Presidents,  directors,  and  managers, 
in  a  panic,  begged  him  to  reconsider,  urged  him 
as  a  neutral  American  to  stay  out  of  the  war  and 
help  them  with  their  difficulties,  called  him  mad 
to  wreck  himself  in  that  fashion.  He  stood  smil 
ing,  his  hands  gripped  hard  in  his  pockets,  friendly 
and  immovable.  They  could  carry  on  without 
him.  If  they  wanted  his  opinion  at  any  time  they 
could  come  around  for  it;  he  would  do  anything 
he  could.  But  he  had  taken  the  Belgian  job  and 
he  would  have  time  for  nothing  else.  He  was 
through  with  mining.  "  I  'm  going  in  for  the 
world's  biggest  wholesale  grocery  job,"  he  said. 

The  Commission  for  the  Relief  of  Belgium  was 
exactly  that.  But  food,  as  a  factor  in  organiza 
tion,  is  only  a  commodity,  so  much  material  to  be 
purchased,  transported,  and  delivered.  He  had 
been  buying  and  handling  not  only  food  but  ma 
chinery,  lumber,  fuel,  all  the  innumerable  mate 
rials  necessary  for  building  mining  camps,  rail 
ways,  and  mills  in  the  far  places  of  the  earth.  He 


328  THE  MAKING  OF 

understood  organization,  both  as  a  technical  prob 
lem  and  as  an  intricate  interlacing  of  human  rela 
tionships.  Men  liked  him  and  liked  one  another 
when  they  worked  together  for  him. 

He  stood  in  a  position  unique  in  history, — an 
individual  with  no  authority  but  his  own,  dealing 
with  all  the  nations  of  a  world  at  war.  As  an 
individual,  he  was  able  to  act  quickly  and  deci 
sively.  When  he  became  chairman  of  the  C.  E.  B. 
just  fourteen  days  stood  between  Belgium  and 
starvation  and  every  obstacle  bureaucracy  could 
oppose  to  him  stood  in  the  way  of  his  getting  food 
into  trains,  into  ships,  out  of  harbors,  and  across 
the  patrolled  and  mine-infested  Channel.  He 
overcame  the  obstacles  by  ignoring  them,  and  the 
Belgians  had  the  food  before  he  had  all  the  neces 
sary  permissions  to  send  it.  It  was  his  way  of 
working,  for  like  his  pioneer  ancestors  he  saw  no 
use  for  an  organization  that  destroyed  individual 
ism  and  had  no  respect  for  the  attitude  of  mind 
in  which  the  means  to  an  end  become  an  end  in 
themselves.  The  basis  of  his  organizations  was 
that  combination  of  authority  and  democracy  that 
was  the  Quaker  village  spread  around  the  earth 
as  a  commercial  machine.  As  the  controlling  head 
of  the  men  who  were  feeding  an  entire  nation,  he 
expected  them  also  to  apply  individual  initiative 
and  intelligence  to  their  immediate  problems  and 
he  gave  them  room  in  which  to  do  it.  He  had 


HERBERT  HOOVER  329 

become  the  king  of  an  unofficial  government  that 
extended  itself  around  the  earth ;  he  was  in  abso 
lute  control  of  it  and  carried  the  responsibility  for 
all  its  acts,  and  he  decentralized  the  authority  so 
completely  that  no  man  in  it  was  entangled  in  red- 
tape.  The  freedom  they  felt  and  the  obligation 
upon  them  to  produce  results,  enlisted  for  him 
the  energy  and  enthusiasm  of  men  who  work  for 
themselves  and  the  efficiency  of  men  who  work 
together  for  a  common  purpose.  The  group  of 
able  and  loyal  men  who  gathered  around  him  was 
one  of  the  few  joys  he  knew  in  those  days  so 
harassed  by  anxieties.  White,  Hunsiker,  Rickard, 
Lucey,  Graff,  Honnald,  Shaler,  and  Polland,  the 
biggest  American  mining  engineers,  gave  them 
selves  as  wholeheartedly  to  the  work  he  directed 
as  he  did,  and  in  two  months  the  C.  R.  B.  was 
pouring  food  through  Holland  into  Belgium. 

The  work  divided  itself  into  five  parts,  all  si 
multaneously  presenting  innumerable  difficulties 
of  detail,— buying,  transporting,  and  delivering 
the  food,  financing  the  work,  and  keeping  open  the 
diplomatic  channels  all  along  the  way.  He  was  a 
trained  buyer  and  he  knew  the  world's  markets; 
his  buyers  were  in  America,  Argentine,  India,  and 
China,  and  a  mind  schooled  for  years  in  stock- 
exchanges  directed  their  adventurous  careers. 
The  markets  had  gone  mad ;  the  stability  of  food 
prices  had  vanished  with  the  international  com- 


330  THE  MAKING  OF 

merce  that  made  it;  wheat,  no  longer  dependent 
on  Liverpool  quotations  and  caught  in  harbors 
without  ships,  was  a  rolling  ball  on  a  gambler's 
roulette  table ;  sugar  in  Hawaii  and  pork  in  Kan 
sas  and  beans  in  Manchuria  leaped  and  fell  with 
the  breath  of  rumor  in  Chicago.  Buying  for  the 
C.  E.  B.  was  a  juggler's  game,  needing  a  shrewd 
eye  and  a  quick  hand,  and  at  his  desk  in  London 
he  played  it  for  the  life  of  Belgium.  When  wheat 
was  high  in  Argentine  he  was  buying  rice  in  Ran 
goon  ;  just  before  it  rained  in  Havana  he  got  sugar 
in  the  Philippines.  He  never  bought  on  a  falling 
market,  and  he  caught  it  before  it  turned.  Mak 
ing  the  C.  R.  B.  's  amazing  record  for  shrewd  buy 
ing  would  have  been  an  hilarious  game  if  he  had 
not  been  too  busy  for  jubilation  and  too  weary  for 
excitement. 

There  was  the  constant  question  of  getting 
ships,  charters,  convoys,  barges.  The  food  came 
overseas  from  South  America  and  through  the 
Suez  Canal  for  China,  then  across  the  Channel 
infested  with  floating  mines  into  the  harbor  at 
Rotterdam,  where  it  was  unloaded  into  a  flock  of 
barges  that  moved  through  the  canals  of  Holland 
into  Belgium.  Seventy  ships  sailed  the  seas 
under  the  flag  of  the  C.  R.  B.,  and  five  hundred 
barges  met  them  at  Rotterdam  and  had  their  own 
renewed  troubles  in  getting  through  the  German 
lines  at  the  Dutch  frontier.  They  were  the  barges 


HERBERT  HOOVER  331 

of  the  C.  R.  B.,  and  who  was  the  C.  R.  B.?  Her- 
bert  Hoover,  one  man  in  no  official  position  with 
any  government. 

Germany  looked  on  him  and  his  men  with  sus 
picion,  as  possible  spies  and  quite  probably  Allied 
sympathizers.  German  military  officers  opposed 
the  soft-hearted  charity  of  feeding  Belgium.  Let 
the  Belgian  civilians  suffer  with  Germany  inside 
an  unbroken  blockade  and  they  would  take  up  the 
German  cause  and  help  defeat  the  Allies.  Eng 
lish  naval  officers  believed  that  the  C.  R.  B.  was 
prolonging  the  war  that  had  brought  death  into 
nearly  every  English  family.  Maintain  the 
blockade  unbroken,  they  urged.  Let  Belgium 
starve.  Either  the  Belgians  would  rise  in  last 
desperate  revolts  that  would  cripple  the  work  of 
the  German  Army,  or  Germany  would  feed  them 
and  thus  bring  more  quickly  her  own  starvation 
and  collapse. 

He  was  feeding  the  Belgians,  and  he  did  it 
against  a  hundred  conflicting  currents  of  opposi 
tion.  Every  day  was  a  crisis.  The  Germans 
would  not  let  the  barges  out  of  Belgium  into  Hol 
land  unless  five  thousand  dollars  was  deposited 
for  each  one,  to  guarantee  its  return.  He  crossed 
the  mined  Channel  at  night,  in  a  boat  darkened  to 
escape  submarines,  and  settled  that  point  without 
yielding  it.  His  men  were  arrested  here,  hindered 
there,  working  under  the  constant  watchfulness 


332  THE  MAKING  OF 

of  enemies.  A  dozen  times  the  Germans  threat 
ened  to  end  the  whole  thing  by  driving  the  C.  E. 
B.  out  of  Belgium.  He  came  and  went  between 
London,  Brussels,  and  Paris,  the  one  man  passing 
through  the  lines  from  French  to  German  to  -Eng 
lish  headquarters,  never  betraying  confidences, 
trusted  even  while  he  was  hated.  In  the  center 
of  the  melee  of  changing  policies  in  governments 
at  war  he  fought  an  endless  series  of  fights,  with 
the  Germans,  the  English,  the  French,  even  with 
the  Belgians.  First  and  last  and  constantly  he 
kept  his  self-control.  He  did  not  let  his  temper 
loose;  he  did  not  speak  a  word  not  considered 
carefully  before  he  uttered  it;  he  kept  his  emo 
tions  under  guard.  His  brain  was  in  charge,  hard 
and  efficient  as  a  machine.  And  he  was  terribly 
tired. 

The  work  must  be  financed.  Northern  France 
had  been  swallowed  by  the  German  armies.  Two 
million,  five  hundred  thousand  more  mouths  to 
feed.  The  C.  E.  B.  was  selling  its  supplies  to 
those  able  to  pay  for  them,  turning  the  profits  into 
its  charity  fund  for  those  who  had  nothing. 
Every  week  that  leveling-down  process  brought 
more  thousands  into  the  bread-lines.  In  the  most 
highly  industrialized  country  of  Europe  hardly  a 
wheel  was  turning;  the  factories  stood  empty;  no 
one  had  work  or  wages,  and  their  only  food  came 
through  the  C.  E.  B.  The  business  had  grown  to 


HERBERT  HOOVER  333 

a  total  of  twelve  million  dollars  a  month,  sup 
ported  by  charity  and  by  unofficial  contributions 
from  governments.  The  money  was  sent  simply 
to  him,  Herbert  C.  Hoover.  Those  hundreds  of 
millions  passing  constantly  through  his  personal 
bank-account  were  guarded  by  nothing  but  his 
own  integrity,  which  to  all  the  governments  of 
Europe  was  a  security  as  sound  as  a  government 
bond.  In  accs&tmg  that  money  he  accepted  the 
entire  responsibility '  for  its  honest  and  efficient 
handling.  It  was  a  point  at  which  the  slightest 
error  would  have  left  him  open  to  the  attacks  of 
his  enemies.  He  guarded  against  that  danger  by 
having  his  accounts  double-audited  and  certified 
by  both  English  and  French  accountants,  and  to 
prevent  a  single  penny  of  that  money  from  com 
ing  to  him  he  not  only  accepted  no  salary  but 
paid  even  his  traveling  expenses  himself.  But  the 
care  of  the  C.  R.  B.  funds  was  on  his  shoulders, 
and  as  the  cost  of  feeding  Belgium  grew  greater 
than  his  resources  he  was  in  the  position  of  the 
head  of  an  enormous  business  that  every  day 
faced  bankruptcy.  It  became  at  last  a  question 
of  raising  money  on  Belgian  assets  from  sources 
outside  that  imprisoned  country.  He  encountered 
the  refusal  of  Germany  to  give  up  the  riches  she 
had  taken  by  force  of  arms,  the  declaration  of  the 
Belgians  that  they  would  rather  starve  than  ac 
cept  any  concessions  from  their  conquerors,  and 


334  THE  MAKING  OF 

the  financial  panics  of  the  rest  of  the  war-ravaged 
world.  The  greatest  financiers  in  the  City  told 
him  that  he  was  attempting  the  impossible.  But 
it  must  be  done.  Through  a  succession  of  plans 
that  were  broken  and  thwarted  and  altered,  re 
assembling  his  resources,  meeting  objections, 
arguing,  fighting  with  tenacity  and  desperation., 
he  did  it.  The  achievement  in  ordinary  times 
would  have  made  him  a  king  of  financiers ;  it  was 
accomplished  in  the  turmoil  when  the  efforts  of 
giants  were  overshadowed  by  more  gigantic  forces. 
He  had  the  money  to  keep  the  C.  R.  B.  going ;  it 
was  one  fight  finished  to  make  room  for  another, 
without  time  between  them  for  rest  or  breathing 
space. 

Verdun, — and  the  French  Government  in  that 
terrific  strain  upon  all  her  strength  contemplated 
abandoning  the  C.  E.  B.  Officially  the  French  had 
never  contributed  to  the  feeding  of  her  two  and  a 
half  million  people  beyond  the  German  lines ;  offi 
cially  she  stood  firm  on  The  Hague  Conference 
rules  and  demanded  that  Germany  feed  them. 
Secretly,  however,  the  French  treasury  sent  Her 
bert  C.  Hoover  twelve  and  a  half  million  francs 
every  month,  receiving  in  return  merely  his  per 
sonal  receipts.  Now  a  faction  in  the  government 
demanded  that  those  payments  cease.  All  France 
was  hungry;  all  France  was  suffering,  straining 
with  her  last  energies  against  the  enemy  at  Ver- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  335 

dun.  Beyond  the  lines  two  and  a  half  million 
French  people  were  fed  and  quiet  under  the  polic 
ing  of  German  soldiers.  Let  them  starve,  and 
they  would  revolt  inside  the  enemy  territory; 
their  ultimate  futile  desperation  might  shake  Ger 
many's  grip  just  sufficient  to  enable  France  to 
hold  Verdun. 

Herbert  Hoover  hastened  for  the  hundredth 
time  across  the  Channel  to  Paris.  He  knew  that 
such  reasoning  was  false ;  he  knew  the  true  situa 
tion  in  Germany.  The  things  he  knew  could  not  be 
told ;  he  was  a  neutral  given  the  freedom  of  both 
camps,  bound  in  honor  to  betray  neither  by  one 
unwary  word  or  glance.  The  French  must  ac 
cept  much  on  his  unsupported  statement;  they 
must  be  made  to  accept  it,  for  the  lives  of  two  and 
a  half  million  of  their  own  people  hung  on  its 
acceptance. 

He  came  back  to  London  with  that  point  won; 
he  had  defeated  the  efforts  of  the  French  military 
party  and  France  would  continue  to  help  the  C. 
R.  B.  Another  crisis  had  arisen  within  Germany ; 
again  the  German  militarists  were  about  to  end 
their  vexations  by  sending  the  C.  R.  B.  out 
of  their  conquered  territory.  German  General 
Headquarters  was  enraged  by  the  false  reports 
of  atrocities  sweeping  the  neutral  countries. 
Guarded  as  the  C.  R.  B.  men  were  in  every  word 
and  gesture,  every  one  knew  where  their  sympa- 


336  THE  MAKING  OF 

thies  lay.  Throw  them  out,  the  generals  insisted ; 
let  Germans  handle  the  Belgians.  They  would 
teach  them  submission  behind  barbed-wire  fences 
in  concentration  camps.  Germany  was  starving; 
why  should  Belgium  be  fed?  Hoover  raced  again 
across  the  Channel  in  a  darkened  torpedo  boat 
and  rushed  to  Brussels. 

i  i  Mark  Twain  said  that  life  was  just  one  damn 
thing  after  another.  Maybe  he  was  right  then; 
nowadays  life  is  all  of  'em  at  once, ' '  they  said  in 
C.  E.  B.  headquarters  in  London.  And  for  the 
twentieth  time  they  gave  the  English  proofs  that 
none  of  the  C.  E.  B.  food  was  falling  into  German 
hands. 

The  distribution  of  the  food  was  one  of  the 
simplest  parts  of  the  work,  thanks  to  the  chief's 
democratic  theories  of  organization.  Down  to  the 
smallest  village,  the  actual  problems  of  distribu 
tion  were  in  the  hands  of  local  Belgian  agents 
working  under  the  Belgian  Comite  Nationale.  It 
was  their  task  to  meet  at  first  hand  the  suffering 
of  their  people ;  that  was  one  thing  that  the  chief 
could  not  do.  He  had  seen  the  children  of  Ant 
werp  in  the  bread-lines,  and  never  again  was  he 
present  at  such  scenes.  These  were  emotions  that 
he  could  not  endure  and  continue  to  do  his  work. 
He  repulsed  bruskly  the  sympathetic  women  who 
wished  to  thank  him  for  the  noble  work  he  was 
doing  for  those  poor  women  and  children  who 


HEEBEET  HOOVEE  337 

were  suffering  so  terribly ;  he  would  not  talk  about 
it. 

"I  remember  the  whole  thing  as  one  long  fight 
without  rounds,"  he  said  when  it  ended  in  the 
spring  of  1917,  and  Lou  Henry  found  one  glimpse 
of  sunshine  for  him  in  the  gloom:  "Perhaps  now 
you  will  be  able  to  meet  your  family  again.  It  's 
really  a  very  nice  family,  you  know. ' ' 

The  ends  of  the  C.  E.  B.  work  were  neatly  gath 
ered  up.  A  business  turning  over  billions  of 
dollars  in  two  years,  with  an  overhead  of  one  half 
of  one  per  cent.  It  was  finished  now,  cleared 
away,  all  accounts  rendered.  Herbert  Hoover 
and  his  family  sailed  at  once  for  America.  Presi 
dent  Wilson,  urged  by  Dr.  Page  to  make  Herbert 
Hoover  Director  of  Munitions,  had  sent  for  him  to 
take  the  food  control  of  the  United  States. 

Washington,  again,  in  the  springtime,  with  the 
green  trees  bursting  into  leaf  in  all  the  parks  and 
squares,  magnolias  on  the  White  House  lawn,  and 
the  placid  Potomac  mirroring  the  woods  upon  her 
banks.  Washington  roused  like  an  angry  beehive, 
its  streets  crowded  with  strangers,  its  air  rever 
berating  to  the  sound  of  hammers  and  saws ;  aero 
planes  roaring  above  the  Washington  Monument ; 
wireless  towers  sputtering  their  crackling  electric 
messages.  Government  departments  expanding, 
multiplying,  spreading  into  scores  of  new  wooden 
and  concrete  buildings,  crowding  into  hotels  and 


338  THE  MAKING  OF 

old  apartment  houses  where  typewriters  and  filing- 
cases  stood  beside  fireplaces  and  bath-tubs. 
Washington,  an  old  political  organization,  sud 
denly  becoming  a  conglomeration  of  enormous 
economic  machinery,  centralized  as  the  old  poli 
tics  had  been  and  trying  to  carry  efficiently  the 
heaviest  economic  load  in  history. 

In  two  hundred  years  America  had  grown  like 
Topsy.  On  the  simple  individualistic  democracy 
of  the  pioneer  the  coming  of  the  machines  had 
imposed  the  inevitable  industrial  autocracies  of 
corporations  and  labor  unions.  The  era  of  organ 
ization  had  evolved  with  them;  an  organization 
that,  founded  on  the  undisputed  autocratic  right 
of  a  man  over  his  own  property,  had  developed 
on  autocratic  lines  and  become  an  increasing  dele 
gation  of  power  from  individuals  to  a  superior. 
Stockholders  delegated  authority  to  directors  and 
presidents;  organized  workers  gave  their  power 
to  ele'cted  representatives.  Capital  and  Labor 
were  two  tremendous  autocratic  organizations, 
meeting  only  at  the  point  of  greatest  antagonism. 
Agriculture,  still  in  the  hands  of  farmers  who 
cherished  the  old  individualistic  democracy,  was 
the  victim  of  both.  It  remained  far  behind  its 
possibilities  of  development,  hampered  by  loss  of 
labor  to  the  cities,  by  lack  of  any  adequate  machin 
ery  of  capitalization,  by  the  efforts  of  labor  to 
raise  wages  which  resulted  in  mounting  costs  of 


HERBERT  HOOVER  339 

manufactured  articles,  and  by  the  efforts  of  cap 
ital  to  make  profits  which  resulted  in  low  prices 
for  farm  products.  Politics,  founded  on  the  idea 
of  a  democracy  of  individuals,  and  confronted  by 
the  facts  of  autocratic  economic  and  political  or 
ganization,  struggled  hopelessly  to  reconcile  the 
two  and  was  lost  in  a  brawl  of  conflicting  interests. 

America  had  now  entered  the  war  and  Herbert 
Hoover  was  in  charge  of  her  food-production  and 
export.  A  product  of  the  pioneer  forces  that  had 
made  the  nation,  he  had  gone  out  into  the  wide 
world  twenty  years  earlier  carrying  with  him  the 
essential  qualities  of  Americanism.  Now  the  na 
tion  itself  was  following  the  footsteps  of  those 
world  pioneers  of  whom  he  had  been  one.  Amer 
ica  had  conquered  a  continent  and  become  a  na 
tion  ;  now  she  was  giving  her  strength  to  the  world 
conflict. 

Herbert  Hoover  inherited  a  chaos.  The  agri 
culture  of  the  United  States  had  continued  to  feed 
its  people  only  because  of  the  tremendous  natural 
resources  of  a  new  country;  for  fifty  years  its 
farming  had  been  slowly  deteriorating,  unchecked 
by  any  but  the  feeblest  political  efforts.  Tenant 
farming  was  increasing;  farm  mortgages  were 
bleeding  the  producers  with  high  rates  of  interest ; 
the  cost  of  farm  machinery  had  steadily  risen  and 
the  supply  of  farm  labor  steadily  decreased.  The 
war  in  Europe  had  flung  confusion  into  the  mar- 


340  THE  MAKING  OF 

kets  and  gamblers  were  plundering  agriculture  as 
thieves  loot  a  burning  city.  Wheat  was  worth 
$1.44  on  the  farms ;  $3.25  on  the  Chicago  gambling 
table;  double  that  in  the  flour-barrel.  Stock- 
growers  were  selling  calves  because  they  could  not 
profit  by  raising  them;  the  urban  middle  classes 
were  eating  less  meat  because  they  could  not  af 
ford  to  buy  it. 

Not  only  the  winning  of  the  war  but  the  feeding 
of  Americans,  and  after  them  the  populations  of 
Europe,  depended  upon  the  director  of  the  Food 
Administration  in  Washington.  Hoover  knew 
how  narrow  was  the  margin  of  hope,  because  'he 
knew  more  intimately  than  any  other  American 
the  actual  situation  of  all  the  nations  at  war.  He 
must  stabilize  and  increase  America's  food-pro 
duction,  decrease  her  consumption,  and  squeeze 
out  between  them  a  larger  exportation  of  food 
than  in  normal  times,  and  he  must  do  it  immedi 
ately. 

He  began  at  once  by  creating  a  decentralized 
organization,  an  organization  based  on  a  theory 
opposed  to  that  of  all  American  political  and  eco 
nomic  organization.  Twenty  years  in  the  affairs 
of  the  world  had  not  altered  his  belief  in  individ 
ualistic  democracy;  absolute  authority  was  in  his 
hands  as  Food  Administrator,  and  he  delegated 
that  authority  downward  as  rapidly  as  possible. 
It  was  the  plan  he  had  followed  in  his  mining 


HERBERT  HOOVER  341 

career;  it  was  the  plan  he  had  used  in  Belgium. 
He  delegated  his  authority  to  the  State  Food  Ad 
ministrators,  through  them  to  county  organiza 
tions,  and  beyond  them  to  the  American  individual. 
Then  he  began  his  tremendous  campaign  of  pub 
licity.  It  was  the  Quaker  village  once  more  ap 
plied  to  huge  affairs,  the  principles  of  free  discus 
sion  and  individual  responsibility.  He  believed 
in  humanity;  he  rested  half  his  load  upon  his 
faith  in  the  righteousness  and  the  power  of  fully 
informed  individuals  acting  freely.  Twelve  out 
of  twenty  million  homes  in  America  responded  to 
his  belief,  and  sixty  million  Americans  were  vol 
untarily  pledged  to  follow  his  instructions  for 
saving  food. 

The  problem  of  production  and  distribution  was 
more  difficult.  He  encountered  there  the  funda 
mental  selfishness  of  men  who  see  their  property 
attacked,  and  the  desperation  of  men  working  for 
self-preservation.  He  had  to  deal  with  gamblers 
who  clutched  their  winnings  and  with  farmers  to 
whom  the  war  had  brought  their  first  hope  of 
prosperity,  and  he  had  to  mend  and  alter  and  keep 
running  the  whole  intricate  machinery  of  Amer 
ica's  food-supply  that  for  two  hundred  years  had 
never  been  controlled  by  any  central  intelligence 
or  justice.  He  began,  under  the  Food  Control  Act 
of  August,  1917,  by  instituting  a  system  of  licens 
ing  handlers  of  food  products  who  did  a  business 


342  THE  MAKING  OF 

of  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
and  by  guaranteeing  farmers  a  minimum  price  of 
two  dollars  a  bushel  for  1918  wheat. 

But  the  winning  of  the  war  for  the  Allies  de 
pended  upon  the  immediate  response  of  the  indi 
vidual  Americans  to  whom  he  had  appealed.  Upon 
them  he  rested  all  his  hope.  Despite  desperate 
urging  to  institute  in  this  crisis  a  system  of  food- 
rationing  and  food-cards  he  still  relied  upon  the 
action  of  free  individuals.  His  campaign  of  pub 
licity  continued;  his  instructions  went  out  to 
American  housewives.  In  the  last  analysis  it  was 
they  who  must  win  the  war.  Prohibition,  policing, 
autocratic  authority,  however  used,  would  not 
avail  against  a  people  who  would  not  voluntarily 
respond  to  his  appeals.  One  reason,  if  reasons 
were  demanded,  was  that  there  was  not  time  to 
use  such  methods.  In  January,  1918,  five  months 
after  he  became  Director  of  the  American  Food 
Administration,  Lord  Ehondda,  the  English  Food 
Controller,  saw  the  last  hope  gone.  He  laid  down 
his  hand  and  said  in  effect  to  the  British  War 
Council : ' '  Gentlemen,  we  are  through.  The  Allies 
have  lost  the  war. ' ' 

His  cablegram  to  Herbert  Hoover  was  already 
in  the  office  of  the  Food  Administrator  in  Wash 
ington.  "Unless  you  are  able  to  send  the  Allies 
at  least  seventy-five  million  bushels  of  wheat  over 
and  above  what  you  have  exported  up  to  January 


HERBERT  HOOVER  343 

first  and  in  addition  to  the  total  exportable  surplus 
from  Canada  I  cannot  take  the  responsibility  of 
assuring  our  people  that  there  will  be  food  enough 
to  win  the  war.  Imperative  necessity  compels  me 
to  cable  you  in  this  blunt  way.  No  one  knows  bet 
ter  than  I  do  that  the  American  people,  regardless 
of  national  and  individual  sacrifice,  have  so  far 
refused  nothing  that  is  needed  for  the  war,  but  it 
now  lies  with  America  to  decide  whether  or  not 
the  Allies  in  Europe  shall  have  enough  bread  to 
hold  out  until  the  United  States  is  able  to  throw 
its  force  into  the  war. ' ' 

This  was  the  anxiety  that  Herbert  Hoover  car 
ried  with  him,  underlying  all  the  anxieties  and 
battles  of  that  winter.  The  1917  wheat  crop  had 
been  poor ;  the  United  States  had  barely  enough 
grain  for  its  own  normal  consumption.  He  was 
embroiled  in  difficulties  with  millers,  bakers,  and 
middlemen ;  he  was  charged  with  disorganizing  all 
normal  business  by  the  activities  of  his  new  grain- 
administration,  by  his  entry  into  the  market  as  a 
coordinator  of  supplies  for  the  Allies.  He  was  in 
reality  trying  at  once  to  save  the  farmer  from 
the  effects  of  speculation  and  extortion,  to  stabil 
ize  prices  and  prevent  wild  gambling  and  panic, 
and  in  the  face  of  the  world's  shortage  of  grain 
and  ships  to  get  enough  wheat  to  Europe  to  save 
the  Allies  without  undernourishing  the  American 
people.  By  July  he  had  sent  ten  million  more 


344  THE  MAKING  OF 

bushels  of  wheat  than  Lord  Rhondda  had  asked 
for,  and  the  crisis  was  past. 

After  that,  the  strain  of  the  work  was  less.  It 
was  a  matter  of  organization  and  reorganization 
only,  and  carrying  the  load  of  the  Food  Adminis 
tration  was  rest  after  the  terrific  labors  of  the  C. 
E.  B.  and  the  first  months  in  Washington.  He. 
had  authority  from  Congress  to  go  into  the  mar 
kets  as  a  buyer,  and  he  organized  the  United 
States  Grain  Corporation  that  by  skilful  maneu 
vering  kept  up  the  price  of  wheat  and  held  down 
the  price  of  flour.  In  his  office  it  was  a  matter  of 
percentages ;  in  1910  the  farmers  had  been  getting 
27  per  cent.,  the  millers  6y2  per  cent.,  the  middle 
men  and  bakers  66%  per  cent,  of  the  price  of 
bread.  In  1915  the  proportions  had  been  30,  11, 
and  59.  With  the  Grain  Corporation  and  Food 
Administration  in  the  field  the  farmers  got  40  per 
cent.;  the  millers  3  per  cent.,  and  the  middlemen 
and  bakers  57  per  cent.  And  the  margin  between 
producer  and  consumer  had  been  cut  from  $11.00 
to  $3.50  per  barrel  of  flour.  Those  figures,  sel 
dom  known  and  never  intelligently  considered  by 
the  American  people,  were  nevertheless  of  the 
greatest  importance  to  the  prosperity  of  every 
farmer  who  plowed  a  field  and  to  the  health  of 
every  child  whose  mother  gave  it  a  piece  of  bread 
and  butter.  The  altering  of  those  figures  was 
Herbert  Hoover 's  task  and  he  did  it  anxiously  and 


HERBERT  HOOVER  345 

with  care  because  he  felt  the  human  values  they 
represented.  But  he  did  it,  because  he  must,  by 
methods  repugnant  to  him.  The  autocracy  he 
was  compelled  to  use  in  the  Food  Administration 
was  against  all  his  convictions ;  he  did  not  believe 
that  such  economic  control  was  the  proper  pro 
vince  of  government.  It  was  necessary  in  the 
emergency  of  the  war,  but  just  and  efficient  con 
trol  of  food-supplies  was  properly  a  matter  for 
the  people  themselves  to  undertake. 

Out  of  the  activities  of  the  Food  Administration 
grew  many  related  problems  of  organization.  He 
formed  an  alliance  between  his  department  and 
the  War  Trade  Board  and  Shipping  Board  to 
control  exports  and  provide  a  further  check  on  the 
possibility  of  panic  at  home.  He  centralized  and 
coordinated  the  food  purchases  of  the  Allies,  the 
neutral  countries,  the  American  Army,  Navy,  and 
Red  Cross,  in  order  that  the  food  might  be  pro 
portioned  in  relation  to  the  supply  and  the  need 
for  it.  His  Division  of  Coordination  of  Purchase 
considered  and  approved  every  shipment  /of  food 
stuffs  from  America. 

But  this  work,  important  as  it  was  to  the  Allies 
and  to  every  American,  and  filled  with  anxieties 
and  crises,  was  not  so  exhausting  as  the  C.  R.  B. 
had  been.  He  was  at  work  ten  and  twelve  and 
fourteen  hours  a  day,  but  on  Sundays  he  was  able 
to  relax  and  to  store  up  in  hours  of  delightful  busy 


346  THE  MAKING  OF 

idleness  the  energy  he  needed.  Every  Sunday 
morning  he  and  Lou  Henry  and  the  boys  piled 
lunch-baskets  and  rugs  into  an  automobile  and 
went  out  into  the  country.  Clerks  and  secretaries 
and  heads  of  departments  from  the  Food  Admin 
istration  went  with  them,  and  somewhere  in  Vir 
ginia  or  Maryland,  at  an  inviting  shady  place 
beside  a  stream,  they  parked  their  cars,  spread 
their  rugs,  and  played.  The  children  waded,  the 
girls  picked  flowers.  Herbert  Hoover  cast  an 
engineer's  eyes  upon  the  scene  and,  choosing  an 
interesting  spot,  rolled  up  his  sleeves  and  built 
dams,  canals,  and  miniature  power-plants  where 
tiny  streams  of  water  turned  wheels  of  twigs. 
His  hands  were  covered  with  mud,  and  the  sun 
was  warm  on  his  back.  The  boys  hung  about  him, 
enthralled.  He  explained  engineering  problems 
of  the  past  and  future,  in  the  Sierras,  Egypt, 
Russia.  They  knelt  together  in  the  mud  and  tried 
to  make  water  run  up  hill.  Appetites  bit  sharply 
at  them  before  the  camp  fire  was  going  nicely  and 
they  sniffed  the  perfume  of  frying  chicken  mingled 
with  the  scent  of  the  summer  woods.  Hoover  ate 
like  a  boy,  sitting  cross-legged,  a  brown-bread 
sandwich  in  one  hand,  a  chicken  bone  in  the  other. 
His  mind  was  wiped  clean  of  all  its  cares. 

"Send  you  to  Europe?  Not  while  you  can  fry 
chicken  like  this!"  And,  lying  on  the  rug,  he 
lighted  the  mild  cigar  that  was  his  one  dissipation 


HERBERT  HOOVER  347 

and  smoked  it  with  slow  enjoyment,  watching  the 
sunshine  through  the  leaves,  until  he  fell  asleep 
and  Mrs.  Hoover,  lifting  a  warning  hand  above 
his  head,  sent  the  children  to  play  farther  down 
the  creek. 

There  was  in  those  Sunday  holidays  an  epitome 
of  the  man  Herbert  Hoover.  As  a  great  name, 
as  a  great  chief  of  organization,  he  moved  through 
two  hemispheres,  changing  the  currents  of  history 
and  the  lives  of  millions.  His  name  itself  had 
become  a  verb  incorporated  in  the  English  lan 
guage.  Behind  the  shelter  of  his  fame  he  re 
mained  essentially  the  human  being  created  by 
the  forces  that  had  created  America, — simple, 
practical,  active,  finding  his  rest  from  work  in 
other  work,  and  at  home  with  the  forests  and 
streams  that  had  been  the  environment  of  his 
pioneer  ancestors  as  he  was  at  home  in  their  ideals 
and  their  ideology. 

This  was  the  man  who,  when  the  war  ended  in 
the  tears  and  wreckage  of  Europe,  went  back 
across  the  Atlantic  with  the  strength  of  America 
behind  him,  to  enter  a  new  epoch  in  the  world's 
history. 

The  old  civilization,  broken  and  mangled  by  the 
war,  was  staggering  under  a  load  it  could  not 
carry.  In  the  ruins  of  autocratic  organizations 
the  white  peoples  of  the  earth,  desperate,  starving, 
faced  the  enigmatic  future.  The  world  they  had 


348  THE  MAKING  OF 

known  had  been  shattered  beneath  their  feet ;  they 
struggled  among  the  fragments,  clinging  to  them, 
throwing  them  away,  trying  to  find  foothold,  try 
ing  to  build  again  some  stability  for  their  children. 

Eussia,  the  first  nation  to  go  to  pieces,  dreamed 
amid  blood  and  terror  of  a  new  earth,  of  an  indus 
trial  civilization  unlike  any  that  had  been  known. 
Beyond  the  smoke  of  battles  and  of  darker  rumors 
a  handful  of  men  in  Moscow  were  trying  to  apply 
to  the  complexities  of  huge  organizations  the  prin 
ciple  of  communism  in  which  human  society  began. 
What  they  were  doing  no  one  knew;  the  story  of 
what  they  hoped  to  do  came  down  from  the  north 
on  every  wind. 

Germany  was  still  in  the  grip  of  the  British 
blockade.  Her  people,  exhausted  by  the  war, 
overwhelmed  by  the  incredible  fact  that  the  Ger-. 
man  Army  was  defeated,  and  starved  behind  the 
inexorable  barrier  of  English  ships,  swayed  like 
crowds  in  a  panic.  They  had  fought  for  their 
emperor  to  the  limit  of  their  strength,  and  they 
were  hungry.  They  had  yielded  to  the  victorious 
enemy,  and  they  were  hungry.  They  had  over 
turned  the  German  throne,  and  still  they  were 
hungry.  German  machine-guns  in  the  streets  of 
Berlin  watched  those  hungry  people. 

What  Herbert  Hoover  had  expected  in  the  old 
C.  E.  B.  days  had  occurred.  He  knew  the  food 
resources  of  Germany ;  he  had  estimated  that  they 


HERBERT  HOOVER  349 

would  not  last  beyond  April,  1919.  He  knew  that 
the  hunger  of  the  people  would  become  starvation 
then.  When  he  landed  in  Europe  as  a  member  of 
the  peace  mission  he  knew  that  unless  the  Eng 
lish  blockade  was  lifted  before  April  the  German 
people  would  see  on  the  winds  blowing  down  from 
Russia  their  only  sparks  of  hope.  Machine-guns 
would  not  hold  them  then,  nor  save  the  rest  of 
Europe. 

Germany  was  asking  for  food,  begging  for  food. 
She  had  gold  to  pay  for  it.  But  the  gold  was 
wanted  for  indemnities  and  reparation  funds. 
There  were  meetings  in  London,  conferences  in 
Paris;  intrigues  and  counter-intrigues  between 
governments,  between  factions  in  governments; 
arguments,  counter-arguments,  floods  of  publicity, 
filed  reports.  Still  the  English  blockade  held. 
The  masses  in  Germany  were  moving.  Barri 
cades  and  blood  and  powder  smoke  in  the  streets 
of  Berlin.  Noske  holding  the  people  quiet  with 
bayonets,  and  their  hunger  growing. 

In  January  Herbert  Hoover  put  the  situation 
squarely  before  the  Council  of  Four.  He  had  the 
facts  on  Germany's  food-supply,  on  the  strength 
of  the  Spartacist  movement  in  Germany,  on  the 
unrest  through  all  Europe.  He  got  the  order 
lifting  the  English  blockade.  Then  he  attacked 
the  multiplying  obstacles  in  the  way  of  getting  the 
food  through.  To  bring  English  and  Germans 


350  THE  MAKING  OF 

together,  to  arrange  financial  agreements  and 
transfers,  to  reconcile  hatreds  and  opposing  inter 
ests,  was  a  matter  of  weeks  prolonged  into  months. 
Within  Germany  Noske  held  control  from  day  to 
day;  hunger  had  become  famine.  The  situation 
could  not  last  beyond  April. 

In  March  the  last  negotiation  was  completed  at 
Brussels.  Herbert  Hoover  was  there  to  put  it 
through;  he  was  free  now  to  ship  the  food  from 
America.  But  he  had  not  waited  for  that;  the 
food  was  already  on  the  seas,  bound  for  Hamburg. 
Four  days  after  the  Brussels  meeting  the  first 
shipment  of  wheat  and  fats  was  in  Germany.  It 
was  his  first  victory  against  the  forces  pulling  all 
Europe  toward  the  solution  offered  by  Russia. 

Chief  of  the  American  Relief  Administration 
and  member  of  the  Supreme  Economic  Council,  he 
held  a  power  greater  than  emperors  had  dreamed 
of;  and  he  used  it  quietly,  steadily,  effectively,  to 
put  out  the  smoldering  brands  of  revolution 
wherever  a  spark  showed.  He  saw  the  task  of  re 
organization  before  the  world,  and  he  saw  the 
solution  of  its  problems  in  an  individualistic  de 
mocracy  founded  on  the  right  of  each  man  to 
use  his  initiative  in  the  acquiring  of  property  and 
the  shaping  of  his  own  life.  He  saw  in  commun 
ism  not  only  the  immediate  danger  of  violent  up 
heavals,  of  death  and  destruction  and  a  further 
breaking  down  of  international  economic  organiza- 


HERBERT  HOOVER  351 

tion,  but  beyond  them  a  false  step  in  human  prog 
ress.  Society  rested  upon  the  individual,  not 
upon  the  community.  The  right  function  of  gov 
ernment  was  not  economic;  government  should 
exercise  upon  the  individual  the  smallest  possible 
control  consistent  with  its  duty  of  insuring  each 
individual  his  right  to  live,  to  acquire  possessions, 
to  enjoy  political  liberty  and  to  pursue  happiness. 
He  saw  the  failures  and  weaknesses  and  crimes  of 
governments,  but  he  believed  that  political  prob 
lems  were  best  solved  by  democratic  republics  and 
economic  injustices  corrected  by  a  decentraliza 
tion  of  organization. 

Therefore  communism  had  in  him  a  most  thor 
ough  and  efficient  enemy.  He  fought  it  with  a 
weapon  that  in  those  months  of  doubt  and  anguish 
was  the  strongest  force  in  Europe, — food. 

The  United  States  has  put  into  his  hands  as 
chief  of  the  American  Relief  Administration  one 
hundred  million  dollars.  It  was  one  cupful  of 
water  with  which  to  put  down  the  fires  of  revolu 
tion  leaping  everywhere  among  the  ruins  of  Eu 
rope.  Russia  was  a  blaze  on  the  horizon ;  Germany 
still  smoldered;  Austria-Hungary,  the  once  solid 
barrier  between  Europe  and  Asia,  had  been  broken 
into  kindling  heaps  of  fuel;  Italy  flickered  with 
little  flames;  France  was  smoking;  England  was 
beating  out  the  sparks  in  Clyde  and  Belfast. 
Once  out  of  control,  the  roaring  conflagration 


352  THE  MAKING  OF 

would  have  burned  away  the  wreckage  of  the 
world's  old  civilization. 

It  must  be  saved.  The  only  way  to  save  it  was 
to  rebuild  from  the  fragments  a  solid  economic 
structure  that  would  resist  the  flames.  While, 
around  the  Council  of  Four  in  Paris,  all  the  gov 
ernments  argued  questions  of  mandates,  of  Shan 
tung,  Fiume,  the  Saar  basin,  the  protectorate  over 
Asia  Minor,  the  indemnities  from  Germany,  the 
reparation  funds,  Herbert  Hoover  was  quietly, 
steadily  at  work  laying  the  foundations  of  a  new 
economic  Europe,  from  the  German  borders  to  the 
Black  Sea  and  the  Caspian.  He  was  rebuilding 
it  in  spite  of  broken-down  transportation,  indus 
tries  destroyed,  the  changing  political  boundaries 
of  states,  the  innumerable  small  wars  ravaging 
Central  Europe.  With  railroads  out  of  commis 
sion,  factories  silent,  armies  burning  and  pillaging, 
and  new  barriers  of  hatred  and  greed  rising  every 
where,  his  men  were  reconstructing  the  old  com 
mercial  unity  of  Central  Europe.  Austrian  ma 
chinery  for  Galacian  oil  and  Croatian  pork;  Ru 
manian  oil  for  Hungarian  wheat;  grain  in  Jugo 
slavia  for  steel  in  Vienna,  Polish  potatoes  for 
Czech  sugar,  Czech  coal  for  Budapest  machines, 
they  bargained  and  traded  and  got  the  goods 
through  despite  hindering  diplomacy,  red-tape, 
looting  soldiers,  and  political  boundaries  never 
twice  the  same.  They  were  feeding  the  people 


HERBERT  HOOVER  353 

and  saving  the  governments.  They  got  the  goods 
through,  an  American  on  every  train. 

Meantime  Hungary  went  communist.  Bela 
Kun  and  the  Soviets  were  on  the  old  throne  of  the 
Hapsburgs,  and  in  hungry  Vienna  the  life  of  the 
Austrian  Government  was  a  matter  of  days.  Aus 
trian  generals  saw  with  horror  that  when  the 
crisis  came  they  would  not  be  able  to  control  their 
own  troops.  There  was  a  communist  revolt  in 
Munich.  If  the  whole  of  Austria-Hungary  went, 
Czecho-Slovakia  would  follow,  and  Germany, 
Italy,  even  France  might  go. 

It  was  Herbert  Hoover  in  Paris  and  his  man 
Captain  Gregory  on  the  ground  who  made  the 
counter-revolution  in  Budapest,  made  it  with  their 
tremendous  power  of  food-control  and  a  skilful 
handling  of  the  political  situation.  Bela  Kun  and 
the  Soviets  fell;  Vienna  was  held  in  a  firm  grip 
with  American  relief  and  American  soldiers ; 
Czecho-Slovakia  stood  firm,  and  Europe  was  kept 
from  communism. 

Herbert  Hoover  was  not  able  to  keep  the 
Rumanian  armies  from  helpless  Hungary.  The 
swing  of  the  pendulum,  carrying  past  the  republic 
at  which  he  had  aimed,  swung  Archduke  Joseph 
upon  the  throne  of  his  Hapsburg  ancestors.  It 
was  Herbert  Hoover  who  flung  him  off  it  again; 
Herbert  Hoover  white-faced  with  fury  in  the 
Council  of  Four  and  coldly  determined  at  the  end 


354  THE  MAKING  OF 

of  the  telegraph  wire  that  reached  to  Captain 
Gregory  in  Budapest.  Americans  would  not  per 
mit  communism;  they  would  not  tolerate  for  a 
moment  the  reactionary  kingdom  of  the  hated 
Hapsburg.  The  Archduke  Joseph  followed  Bela 
Kun,  and  the  cheerful  voice  of  America  was  in 
the  telegram  that  announced  his  downfall: 

Hoover,  Paris. 

Archie  went  through  the  hoop  at  eight  o  'clock  to-night. 

GREGORY. 

The  American  Relief  Administration  ended 
with  the  end  of  those  fearful  months  in  which  the 
Council  of  Four  discussed  behind  closed  doors  the 
map  of  Europe;  in  which  governments  and  fac 
tions  intrigued,  plotted,  counter-plotted,  fought 
for  the  spoils  of  a  wrecked  world;  in  which  the 
European  peoples,  disillusioned,  despairing, 
bleeding  under  the  tread  of  armies  and  starving 
among  silent  factories,  quivered  toward  a  stam 
pede  that  would  have  destroyed  every  remnant  of 
the  old  regime.  It  was  a  turmoil  from  which, 
having  done  what  it  could  to  stay  the  forces  of 
destruction,  having  helped  to  lay  the  foundations 
for  a  renewal  of  construction,  the  American  Be 
lief  Administration  withdrew. 

There  was  only  one  task  in  Europe  that  it  did 
not  relinquish, — the  effort  toward  insuring  that 


HERBERT  HOOVEfe  365 

the  white  races  in  Europe  would  live  to  make  their 
own  future.  Their  children  were  dying ;  the  com 
ing  generations  had  been  fed  into  the  war  fur 
naces.  Crippled,  wizen,  twisted  by  suffering  and 
hunger  into  figures  that  were  a  terror  rather  than 
a  hope,  they  must  be  fed  and  mended  and  made 
strong  enough  to  take  up  the  burden  of  the  new 
century.  From  the  profits  of  the  Relief  Admin 
istration  its  chief  had  saved  enough  to  give  them 
milk  and  medicines,  and  this  work  he  continued 
from  his  offices  in  New  York.  It  was  the  only 
remaining  charity  that  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  gave  to  the  peoples  of  Europe. 

America  faced  her  own  problems  of  recon 
struction  at  home  and  enterprise  abroad.  It  was 
in  helping  to  meet  those  problems  that  Herbert 
Hoover  would  make  his  own  future.  He  returned 
to  his  own  country,  which  in  spirit  he  had  never 
left,  and  he  brought  back  to  her  enriched  by  world 
experience  those  qualities  of  character  and  mind 
that  two  hundred  years,  earlier  had  made  her  a 
nation— courage,  honesty,  energy,  a  practical 
grasp  of  concrete  fact,  and  an  unalterable  belief 
in  a  democracy  made  by  individuals  for  individ 
uals.  These  qualities  had  made  him  part  of  the 
world-pioneering  movement  of  America ;  they  had 
made  him  one  of  the  most  powerful  men  in  history. 
Upon  these  qualities  in  Americans  he  based  his 


356  HERBERT  HOOVER 

confidence  that  his  country  would  stand  unshaken 
by  the  great  catastrophe,  building  a  secure  future 
on  the  firm  foundations  of  the  past. 


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